On The Surface
An exhibition by Stitch Textile Artists
February - March 2006 at The Phillips Gallery, Brewhouse, Taunton.
Diversity was the key to this exhibition of new works by Stitch Textile Artists. Each of the twelve artists took inspiration from a variety of interests and personal passions from early morning swimming, frosted vegetable patches, birds, shoes, butterflies to Mediterranean retreats, the canals of Venice and human emotions.
The surfaces, which were created in a wide variety of media, invited the viewer to contemplate the ideas and feelings that lie beneath them. Apart from the expected fabric and thread there was clay, paper pulp, plastics, metals, papers, fleece, paints, PVA, wood and found objects. There was also a diverse range of techniques, from screen-printing, painting and fabric manipulation to the innovative use of stitch (hand and machine) bonding, burning, dyeing and moulding. The choice of media and techniques by each artist is their individual response to their subject matter.
The result was a gallery space saturated with colour, pattern and texture, in a mix of two and three-dimensional design. From the figurative to the abstract, there was something for everybody to engage with.
