Katharine Swailes
Autumn Field, 2022
Wool, cotton bamboo
52 x 118 x 3.5cm
Series:
Signed on the back
CF0860
Currency:
Autumn Field draws its inspiration from the planting of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf. Talking about the work Katharine says: 'Like my tapestry weaving, Piet Oudolf’s herbaceous gardens are free...
Autumn Field draws its inspiration from the planting of Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf.
Talking about the work Katharine says: "Like my tapestry weaving, Piet Oudolf’s herbaceous gardens are free of structure. When visiting a place I try to take it all in in one glance, it's a feeling in a snapshot. I think about a number of things, light and colour, what it has evoked in my mind, how these memories emotions of place feel, the haze of tone and colour, they are all interconnected literally and emotionally.
"These colourfield tapestries created from my hand dyed worsted wools, make visible an inner landscape, abstract in their outcome, seasonal in their light or mood. The end result is unseen and unplanned at the outset, without the trappings of traditional preparatory drawings or structured weaving processes. I want the weaving space to be free and unencumbered, a focused intuitive meditation of the process and space, those visited and remembered, and the place where I sit and all that that brings."
Katharine has created textiles for over 30 years, specialising in conventional flat wall works and smaller three-dimensional sculptural pieces. She also weaves large scale commissions at Atelier Weftfaced and West Dean Tapestry Studio. The constructively open-ended nature of the medium is at the heart of Katharine’s practice. In 2016 Katharine received the Theo Moorman Award and she has been shortlisted for the Cordis Prize in 2016 and 2019. In 2020 her work was included in the exhibition Common Thread at the New Art Centre, Wiltshire.
Exhibitions
Selected Exhibitions
Hauser & Wirth - Make 2022
Artefact 2023