Katharine Swailes

Memory and reflection are an important part of Katharine Swailes abstract Colourfield handwoven tapestries. Katharine works intuitively with colour, reflecting on childhood memories recreating the textures and colours of the rich Cumbrian landscape where she grew up. She spent happy times exploring and walking with her parents, an artist and a local historian, observing land traces, flora and fauna and these observations have informed her work. Katharine now lives and works in the Sussex countryside which continues to inspire her meditative weaving. The abstract image is achieved through implementing a number of processes to create the minimal, subtle colour and surface texture. This subtlety is achieved and enhanced by carefully blended wool weft yarns which she constructs from hand dyed worsted wools. 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.