Katharine Swailes
Memory and reflection, are important with Katharine Swailes abstract colour studies in handwoven tapestry.
Working intuitively with colour, Katharine reflects on a childhood in the texture and colour of a rich Cumbrian landscape, time spent exploring and walking with her parents (an artist and a local historian) observing land traces, flora and fauna. All these have informed the artist’s approach to observation.
Now living and working in the Sussex countryside these tapestries are inspired by the landscape and the meditative activity of weaving. The abstract image is arrived at by implementing a minimal number of processes to create the image, the subtle colour enhanced by carefully blended wool weft yarns.
The wool and cotton materials lead Katharine’s approach to these colourfield tapestries and are constructed from hand-dyed worsted wools. This fibre is a central part of the artist’s life now, as it was in childhood. These long connections help her focus inward to a slowing meditative process of handwoven tapestry. Drawing from a limited supply of wool yarns, newly dyed yarn supplement and bring together this woollen palette. Dyeing is an important part of her practice, creating colour families for each project. On this series, the artist introduces one strand of bamboo yarn or cotton to create a reflection on the surface, the opposite of the light-absorbing wool, creating a movement.
Katharine is exploring tapestry weaving without the constructs of formal pattern that are found in traditional tapestry. To sit and weave for a day focusing only on the passing of the weft through the warp, a meditative process through repetition. Butterflies of weft are selected at random letting them weave together, the tones and shades playing off each other as she focuses on the calm surface, allowing these weft yarns to reveal the path of her weaving process. The butterflies are the way in which the weft is held as it is passed through the warp, these are made before the weaving of the day. Seven strands of wool create one weft each strand can be the same colour or different.
These works are about the internal landscape as much as the one inhabited, with all the hues tones and texture, mixing finding tranquillity in processes known and inhabited for decades.
See Katharine's Work in Our Textile Feature
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Looking Along, 20£ 875.00View more details
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Looking Up, 20£ 875.00View more details
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Upland - Colourfield Tapestries Series , 2020£ 4,200.00View more details
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Colourfield Tapestries Series II - Installation of Six Tapestries, 2021View more details
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Impatient for Spring - Dark 2, 2021£ 6,050.00View more details
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Impatient for Spring - Light 1, 2021£ 3,850.00View more details
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Impatient for Spring - Light 2, 2021£ 6,050.00View more details
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Autumn Field, 2022£ 7,480.00View more details
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Chalk Sun and Harvest Moon (Diptych), 2022 ReservedView more details
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Colourfield Warm Harmonies - Strong Yellow, 2022£ 1,540.00View more details
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Verdure Colourfield, 2023£ 12,000.00View more details
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Cavaliero Finn presents The Anonymous Line at the London Art Fair 2025
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Flora Majestica
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20 Years of Cavaliero Finn
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For this exhibition, Cavaliero Finn returned to its South London roots to celebrate its 20th birthday at Stockwell Studio. The exhibition featured a wide range of artists who have shown with the gallery over the last 20 years including work by our current portfolio of artists and work from some of our earlier artists, like painters Holly Frean, Daisy Cook and Caroline Popham, paper artist Thurle Wright, designer makers Sam Edkins and Deborah Bowness, and sculptors Tom Stogdon, Danuta Solowiej, Merete Rasmussen and Patricia Volk who returned to the gallery as guest artists for this show. The exhibition also included an installation by textile artist Isabelle Fletcher and new work by Lise Herud Braten, the most recent additions to the Cavaliero Finn portfolio.
Revisit this exhibition online now.
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Missed us at Collect 2024?
Our presentation is available to view and purchase online 28 Feb - 31 Mar 2024Missed us at Collect? See the collection and installation images here. For Collect 2024 at Somerset House Cavaliero Finn presented The Alchemy of Nature at the fair featuring work by...Read more
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Crafting a Difference at Formed, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour
Proudly presented by Cavaliero Finn, jaggedart and Vessel Gallery 9 - 13 Oct 2023The Crafting a Difference collective has worked together since the pandemic offering a distinctive and unique selection of museum quality works and vast knowledge and experience in both the craft...Read more -
Elemental Lines
Cavaliero Finn at Ballroom Arts 152A High Street, Aldeburgh, Suffolk IP15 5AQ UK 8 - 18 Jun 2023This exhibition, which coincided with the Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk, took place in Ballroom Arts a beautiful space overlooking the North Sea. Elemental Lines examined how the lines of the...Read more -
Artefact - Design Centre Chelsea Harbour
The contemporary craft fair 9 - 13 May 2023Cavaliero Finn spent a great week exhibiting at the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour in May at Artefact which was organised as part of London Craft Week 2023. Our curated presentation...Read more -
Hint - Cavaliero Finn at Gallery 475
475 Fulham Road, London SW6 1HL 6 - 18 Dec 2022Cavaliero Finn is pleased to announce news of its next exhibition, Hint, a group show featuring pairings of two and three dimensional art works that echo each other in some way, whether it's a hint of colour, form or pattern or even subject matter.Read more
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Decorative Fair Autumn 2022
Contemporary on the Mezzanine, Battersea Park, London 4 - 9 Oct 2022Cavaliero Finn Presents The Art of Geometry at Contemporary on the MezzanineRead more
Exhibiting alongside some of the UK’s leading gallieries in modern craft and design, Cavaliero Finn will present - The Art of Geometry - a collection of work featuring geometric abstraction inspired by diverse but interrelated references. -
Artefact 2022
The contemporary craft fair at Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London 10 - 15 May 2022Artefact, is a contemporary craft fair which brings the joy of the handmade to an audience of designers, architects, collectors and enthusiasts, illustrating the increasing importance of craft to the interior design industry. It features objects of astonishing artistic merit courtesy of a host international galleries in the Design Avenue. An accompanying programme of specialist talks and demonstrations helps bring the contemporary craft to life.Read more -
Collect Art Fair at Somerset House, London
The leading contemporary craft and design fair 25 Feb - 6 Mar 2022Cavaliero Finn was delighted to return to London's beautiful Somerset House for Collect which took place this year from 25-27 February 2022 with previews on 23-24 February 2022. Cavaliero Finn presented work by 15 artists at Collect including work by Edmond Byrne, Matthew Chambers, Simon Gaiger, Ashraf Hanna, Björk Haraldsdóttir, Ikuko Iwamoto, Mimi Joung, Sun Kim, Nicholas Lees, Cecilia Moore, Frances Priest, Daniel Reynolds, Katharine Swailes, Annie Turner and Jacy Wall.Read more -
ARTEFACT: The Contemporary Craft Fair
22 - 29 Jun 2021Attracting top designers, architects, collectors and art lovers, Artefact will feature an impressive roll call of contemporary craft and visual arts galleries including; Oxford Ceramics, Katie Jones, Lloyd Choi Gallery,...Read more
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Heirlooms of the Future - Katharine Swailes
Dominque Corlett speaks to tapestry weaver about finding inspiration in the colours of nature and breaking free from unicorns.Dominique Corlette, Homes and Antiques, August 1, 2024 -
State of the Art
Six Textile Artists to Invest inPatrick Hamilton Courtney, Homes and Gardens, July 1, 2024 -
Weft and Warp
Imogen Lycett Green meets textile artists Katharine Swailes and Caron Penney.Imogen Lycett Green, Rosa Magazine - Issue 8 Spring 2024, May 1, 2024
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Verdure Colourfield, 2023£ 12,000.00
-
Autumn Field, 2022£ 7,480.00
-
Chalk Sun and Harvest Moon (Diptych), 2022 Reserved
-
Colourfield Warm Harmonies - Strong Yellow, 2022£ 1,540.00
-
Colourfield Tapestries Series II - Installation of Six Tapestries, 2021
-
Impatient for Spring - Dark 2, 2021£ 6,050.00
-
Impatient for Spring - Light 1, 2021£ 3,850.00
-
Impatient for Spring - Light 2, 2021£ 6,050.00
-
Upland - Colourfield Tapestries Series , 2020£ 4,200.00
-
Looking Along, 20£ 875.00
-
Looking Up, 20£ 875.00