Textile art is having its moment, and it is a global phenomena. As the traditional ‘art-or-craft’ barriers are upended by artists and collectors alike, textile art, (often termed fibre art in the USA where artists in the 1960s and 70s were hugely influential in driving it's acceptance) which can include weaving, crochet, loose thread, carpets, hand and machine stitch and more, is at the forefront of ‘What to Collect Now’. Establishments within architecture, fashion, design and contemporary art continue to take note and comment on the advancement of textile art, it's increasing prevelance in major exhibitions and museums since the 1960s and its particular prominence in the past five years. 

Hands are hard to draw, 2018 by Anthony Stevens

It is not the first time in human history that textile art has been highly sought after, but it has a turbulent history of acceptance and denial. While it has existed for millennia, it has not always been held in such high esteem by the art establishment. Positioning it within a quick potted history helps to understand. 

'Fine Lines' by Jacy Wall, 2019
Woven tapestry, wool, linen on cotton warp

Anthropologists estimate that people have been creating and decorating textiles, initially clothes and carpets for warmth, for 100,000-500,000 years. From these humble beginnings where plant and animal fibres would have been spun or twisted together to make functional objects, the journey becomes aligned with our political history. 

The 14^th-17^th centuries in Europe saw wealthy patrons commissioning tapestries, a time when tapestry was often the costliest and most prestigious item in Medieval or Renaissance homes. Medieval English embroidery known as Opus Anglicanum was prized around the world for its skill and artistry. Made by both women and men, it signified the pinnacle of luxury in Medieval Europe. Simultaneously, in the Middle East they made beautifully crafted rugs using symbols and complex designs. 

Beneath the Tree, 2019 by Alice Kettle

The Industrial Revolution (1760-1820) and associated burgeoning of affordable fabrics and machine production saw a plethora of textiles as functional objects. Stitching remained associated with the manual work of mainly women. During this period, in 1768, the Royal Academy of Art, London was founded. Eighteen months later it ruled that needlework was not permitted to be shown in the Academy, a damning indictment that textiles were not at the time regarded as high art, undeniably consolidating the prejudice and gender politics of this judgement. During this period of history, textile art fell from favour. 

The years following the Second World War saw textile art start to meet its aesthetic and political potential. Used for political purposes and as a means of communication and expression, artists started to work with textiles in ways never previously seen. Visionary creatives moved beyond weaving, and began knotting, twining, plaiting, coiling, pleating, lashing, and interlacing and started exploring the 3D potential of textiles. Textile art started to enter the domain of scholarly writings and academia. By incorporating emotion, message and meaning into the work, artists elevated the status of their work – it had become high art once again. It was a time when the quality of idea and execution was what mattered, not the fabric used. Textile art is a powerful tool for communication which defies boundaries, this has contributed to the democratisation within the art and craft revolution. 

The Challenge, 2017, handwoven tapestry by Caron Penney

Championed by women artists in the first half of the 20^th century, with two important figures being Annie Albers and Sheila Hicks, textile art is territory now occupied by both men and women, leading to the emergence of some contemporary names including El Anatsui, Chris Offili and Damien Hirst. Prominent names who have become specialists in textile art include Alice Kettle (UK), Anne Wilson (USA) and Hiroyuki Shindo (Japan). Textile art has been surging in popularity with both collectors and artists since the 1960s. An important global event was the Tapestry Biennale in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1962. Today, new younger artists are interested in process, expression and experimentation, and the choice of material is of little significance, they are not confined by outmoded prejudice. Contemporary artists are pushing the medium to its limits. Artists are pushing the boundaries of what is textile and how textiles can be art. 

So why is textile art trending now? Its earlier suppression allows it to be new, and therefore exciting. As it has been marginalised historically, it now has a chance to be seen as current and original. There is not a recent abundance of textile art, and with the time it takes to produce, neither is there an oversupply. This form of artistic expression allows designers, architects and artists to incorporate textile art in the spaces of today in unprecedented ways. Textile art is now hung in homes with fine art collections, and museums are acquiring major textile works for their permanent collections. For example, Southampton City Art Gallery, the Museum Partner of London Art Fair 2020, have recently acquired Odyssey, a seminal work by Alice Kettle. Kettle is one of a number of artists showing as part of Threading Forms, a curated section at London Art Fair 2020 attempting to bring to the fore a selection of galleries and artists who are both embracing the potential, and challenging the limitations, of thread in contemporary art. The section of the Fair aims to capture the breadth of different artists working in textiles and the growing appreciation of the medium as a beautiful and collectible art form.

But there is another reason why textile art is coming into its own. In a time of high consumerism and production, with the immediacy of digital, the painstaking handmade object has become a luxury. As millennials demand experiences not things, they can savour the experience of feeling a textile object and contemplate its creation. Textiles are part of all of our lives; we all experience textiles every day, they are familiar and essential. The time taken to stitch or weave is a comforting counterbalance to our rushed lives, soothing our frenzied minds.

About the author;

Candida Stevens is the founding director of Candida Stevens Gallery, a curation-led gallery established in 2014. Threading Forms is showing as part of London Art Fair on 22 – 26 January 2020 (VIP Preview 21 January). https://www.londonartfair.co.uk/

Exhibiting Galleries;

Arusha Gallery show work by Julie Airey

Atelier WeftFaced show work by Caron Penney and Katharine Swailes

Candida Stevens Gallery show work by Alice Kettle

Cavaliero Finn show work by Jacy Wall alongside ceramics by Björk Haraldsdóttir

Oxford Ceramics Gallery show work by Peter Collingwood

OutsideIn show work by Anthony Stevens

West Dean College weave on site throughout the fair

OutsideIn shows the work of Anthony Stevens

West Dean Tapestry Studio will be on site demonstrating weaving all week

Within Each Other, Portraits of Ourselves

by Alice Kettle

Textiles offer a powerful medium through which to explore themes of cultural heritage, journeys and displacement. This exploration was central to Alice Kettle’s ambitious Thread Bearing Witness project shown at The Whitworth, Manchester in 2018. Through this project Kettle connected communities and individuals across the UK with the making of three monumental works inspired by the strength, resilience, and hospitality of refugees and asylum seekers. This new project Within Each Other, Portraits of Ourselves, launched as part of Threading Forms curated by Candida Stevens for the London Art Fair, sees Alice extending her reach beyond the UK, to incorporate communities around the world. 

“We only see what we look at.  To look is an act of choice.” 

John Berger, Ways of Seeing

Featured artists; 

Helen Blake

Rob Lyon

Grace O’Connor

Anne Rothenstein

Dan Stevens

Perception is defined as ‘the way in which something is regarded, understood, or interpreted’.  I hope that this exhibition will make us aware of how hard it is to see, how much perception plays a part, and that ‘seeing’ requires attention. 

Below The Surface is a much anticipated solo exhibition of drawings by British artist Irene Lees. Produced between 2011-2019 the show brings together two new bodies of work, inspired by both Pablo Picasso and Sylvia Plath, alongside selected drawings from the past decade. 

Irene Lees’ ever-questioning mind, her curiosity for human psychology, social history and injustice, is the driving force behind her work. Contained in these tightly conceived and intricately constructed drawings, is a strongly felt human emotion and spirit that filters through. 

Through meticulous skill, research and application, she creates what she describes as her ‘artwork essays’; Hand-drawn rhythmic loops or layers of text, in an almost digital like rendering, which tell the stories of her chosen subjects. Writer and critic, Laura Gascoigne, introduces the catalogue for Below The Surface, writing; “Where [Lees] senses social injustice, she will pick up a thread and follow it to the source of the trouble, like Theseus tracking the Minotaur through the maze. Her drawings are a record of these journeys, charged with the emotions felt en route. In contemporary conceptual art research can easily be uncoupled from visual imagination, but Lees’ work is a perfect fusion of the two as she literally weaves the research into the image. Her work is conceptual in the true sense of the word: ‘Every time I’m doing something, it has to have a meaning.’”

Injustices borne by women are a constant concern for this female artist, which we see in four of the five series; the Picasso series, the Boko Haram series, the History of Body Packaging and the Votes for women. Here we demonstrate in more detail the motivation behind the two new series.

Our next exhibition brings together two artists informed by mathematical reasoning, form, and the shape of things. Formal geometry rubs shoulders with the suggestion of humanity.

Both artists say they want the work to 'feel real' and for people to connect with the pieces intuitively. They both refer to themselves as makers.

The two artists, sculptor Will Nash and painter Peter Waldron, will be in conversation at the gallery this coming Saturday 2nd February at the opening of the exhibtion.

We are delighted to be presenting a survey of prints and paintings that spans a 20 year period of Jeremy Gardiner’s career. It has been eight years since Gardiner’s exhibition A Panoramic View at Pallant House Gallery. While he embarks on a study of the Sussex coast for the first time it seems timely to welcome him back to Chichester and have the opportunity to share his journey so far. Many of these paintings have been held back for Gardiner’s personal collection, so we are honoured to be able to show some important pieces from these significant phases of his work. Gardiner has had an illustrious career, with work in numerous important British Collections and Museums. A number of essays have been written, over the years, by art critics and art historians alike. In order to summarise, without diminishing, the importance of the bodies of work represented here, we look back at what some of these writers have observed. 

Essays from the exhibition catalogue, by Charles Saumarez Smith, Candida Stevens and Paul Bonaventura

HAMISH MACKIE ( b.1973)

Interview by Kerry Betsworth

Photography on site at the foundry in Oxfordshire by Dan Stevens

“Sorry, can I call you back I’ve got a tractor just arrived who’s delivering a horse”. It turns out later that this is one of his spectacular, bronze sculptures of an Andalucian Stallion which is going off to be placed at Stowe House. When he calls me back, we clear up the confusion – no not a real live horse - and laugh about how every artist needs a tractor.  The quick-speaking, energetic and affable Mackie then begins to shares his thoughts on taking part in GOOD NATURE.

Hamish Mackie is an artist who doesn’t skate on top of nature, he is deeply rooted in it, experiencing and in contact with it on a daily basis. He grew up on a farm in Cornwall and has the practical knowledge of what it is to be part of and survive in nature.  He tells me of early memories of a cockerel’s death where he became mesmerised by the anatomy of the bird, and was moved to sculpt it at school. He tells too the tale of a calf with a twisted gut that his father gave him responsibility to care for and rehabilitate. The 12 year old Mackie remembers fondly how the calf would follow him all over the farm, even up to the top of the hay stacks – ‘besties’ he says.

Later, his fascination with wildlife grew and became the major influence for his work as sculptor. Since 1998 he has travelled widely to observe, draw and sculpt wildlife in some of the world’s most remote landscapes. He lists Africa, Australia and Antartica as continents he visits to observe a vast array of wildlife.  He is a 21^st century explorer with an aim to capture a moment of a wild creature’s existence in its own environment. 

This is something Mackie considers himself lucky to be able to do. Artists in the past would have to go to the zoo but now he can observe animals in the raw, living and responding to the natural world around them.  He sees the landscapes as fundamental to how an animal exists and survives. Both co-exist and when it is correct “Nature is nature” he states “It is neither good nor bad, it just is”. The essence of his work is capturing this honest, if fleeting, moment.

He is not apologetic in that he believes there is a need to conserve the wildlife and natural kingdoms. He talks about his long and deep interest in the elephants he has observed in Liuwa, Africa. He comments that huge strides have been made in environmental practice from the days when he first travelled there over 20 years ago. Then they were unreconstructed cattle farms, driven by commerce. Now those farms have become environmentally focused, empowered to conserve and protect. TUSK is an organization that he has always supported, driven by his experiences and observations of human and wildlife in conflict there.

The natural world outside our shores may seem spectacular with its powerful tigers, lions and rhinos but he comments that there are wonders close to home too.  We talk of his recent trip to the Isle of Ulver, where he took time to study deer.

His piece for GOOD NATURE is a pair of boxing hares. For him, hares are an enduring and much loved image of the English landscape and one that is as important to him as the elephants in Lowea.

He tells me that he regularly re-visits the subject, attracted by their dynamism and athletic shapes. “I use my interpretations of hares as a benchmark for my artistic development and technical scope”.  This piece has provided him with an opportunity to ‘take bronze casting to its structural limits’. The light-footed hares are mid-kick with limbs only contacted in two places.

I ask him if the he thinks artists have a role in bringing nature to our attention and highlighting its shifting affects. “Yes” he simply states. Artists have long taken inspiration from nature and the natural world and without it there wouldn’t be a channel through which to create. He feels they have a duty of care to reveal its beauty and fragility. In doing so the next generation too can find inspiration - “It would be criminal to let it go on our watch” he says.

He does though hold out some hope for the future and thinks that the human race is slowly waking up to the realities and consequences of preserving nature.  For him, the demands of his studio and the making   of work in the foundry have meant that he cherishes his time in the wild all the more. In his view there’s too much rushing today and it can mean we miss out on what’s going on in the environment. Humans need to get back to the place they originated and take stock.

April, 2017

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Touched by the pathos of humanity in the world we inhabit, here is a body of work deeply felt and observed.  ‘Yearning’ is a word that resonates with nomadic artist Pippa Blake, and it’s not hard to see why when you view her soulful, touching paintings. Her work often lingers in the darkness, as small pools of light appear and illuminate or ignite a curiosity about her chosen subject. Blake is constantly searching as she investigates and explores her vision of the world.

QUEST, seems an apt title for her solo show, which takes a look at a body of work from the last ten years. Her subjects are inspired by dramatic geographical and man-made features; from gorges and wastelands to figures glimpsed. Her enigmatic paintings evoke a sense of mystery and mood and for her they “are outer expressions of her inner feelings”.

Blake’s work is immensely atmospheric, perhaps melancholic but there is something always exquisite in the moment or scene that she captures – a soulfulness. Her work is able to suspend us in a place where reflection and stillness can happen. “I have always felt deeply. Light and dark is integral to my work. I look to the horizon and am fascinated by what might be beyond”.  Many of her pieces are observed from a distance, often on travels – in cars, aboard planes, on walks – the world Blake shares with us is one that is seen to be going on about us but one in which we only watch, peripheral, not disrupting, hidden.

This is in contrast to the way in which Blake makes her paintings.  She comments that she “loves the physical process of gestural mark making”. She tells me that she puts her whole body into it – left to right, up and down - the larger the canvas the better. For her painting is a very visceral and immersive act and this commitment remains vital to her practice. Music too fuels her creativity and she has a passion for blues, jazz and Bach. Her current obsession, in the studio, is Wagner’s overture to Tannhauser. 

Art has always been part of Blake’s life. Her grandmother and mother were both potters and artists and she was encouraged from an early age to be creative. Her childhood on the shores of Chichester Harbour was spent messing about in boats, walking on the South Downs, and today remain places that fuel her work. She attended both Camberwell School of Art and later West Dean College. She sites Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and Richard Diebenkorn as influences and her early abstract art school work was influenced by an exhibition of Islamic art at the Hayward Gallery.

A critical moment came for her when her then tutor squared off an inch of wall “and made me sit and paint it”. I suddenly realised I was making a painting and that it was totally valid as a piece of work”. Later, her MA tutor Dr. Ed Winters was pivotal to her artistic development as she began to move towards an aesthetic inspired by words shared with her “The landscape can be but a metaphor for the mind and its contents”.

Blake is something of a rover and adventurer so it was no surprise when life found her criss-crossing seas and continents, at times living on boats and making other lands her temporary home. In this time, she experienced both deep personal joy and pain, which has sometimes spilled into public life, with the tragic death of her much admired husband, yachtsman Sir Peter Blake.

Throughout her life though, she tells me that she has always felt drawn to the darker side of the human experience. She was much affected by the poetry of the war poets, particularly one of her literary heroes Wilfred Owen, at school. A line from his poem Strange Meeting has long resonated with her and war is a theme to which she continues to return. She was recently appointed artist in residence for Chichester Festival Theatre to respond to the play Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me that explored a hostage experience. Today she continues to watch, collect and remain fascinated with the images of conflict in the Middle East and the response and reaction of the people it affects and the adversity they face.

Journeys are also a repeating theme for Blake. Her Road series, was inspired by drives at night to and from West Dean College. She was touched by the loneliness of travelling in darkness. Recent travels have led to the creation of her newest series Flightpath. She comments that so often “we zoom past the world but for me, when I’m in the air, I am acutely aware that there is a whole world down there and people getting on with their lives and dramas”.  The poignancy of this thought, and the unknown circumstances or conditions of the people below, are what she feels moved by and is expressing when she paints.

Blake’s mastery of mark making, gestural strokes and the suggestion of form and line are evident across the work. She tells me that she has a sheer love of paint, always oil, for its “…quality, richness and texture” and intuitively mixes her colours to get the tonal effect that helps to give her work such mystery. For her painting is not easy and she comments that “I constantly question why I do it. People often say it must be relaxing to be able to paint but for me it is a struggle but one that I can’t help doing’.

This show may be something of a crossroads for her as she contemplates where she will go next, not just in the world but also with her painting. She sees it as a wonderful opportunity to overview her work and is curious as to what questions or answers it may draw out. So, just for a moment, we shall suspend here, somewhere between the light and dark, and take time to see what might be revealed before this remarkable painter continues on with her quest.

We are delighted to welcome back to the gallery Nicola Green, a contemporary artist with a unique eye focused on the movements and people that lead and represent us in modern times. She is forensic in her observation, questing in her curiosity and unceasing in her commitment to creating and gathering vast visual records on each of her subjects before she enters her studio to create the portrait, or series, that she seeks. 

ICON - 24 CONTEMPORARY BRITISH ARTISTS ARE ASKED TO CREATE ONE PIECE OF WORK THAT ICONIC TO THEM AND TELL US WHY

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