Jennifer Collier: (Gallery Co-Director)
The art of paper and stitch_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Paper pioneer Jennifer Collier creates exquisite sculptures from vintage recycled materials in conjunction with stitch; a contemporary twist on traditional textiles. The papers serve as both the inspiration and the media for the work, with the narrative suggesting the forms. Through this marriage of unlikely materials old papers are transformed into something truly unique, delicate and complex.
Most recently Jennifer has been collecting rarely used, heritage stitches and discovering how to translate the art of lost stitches onto paper, as these techniques are an important part of our creative heritage and she wants to continue to invest time in them to keep them in the present, offering them onto future generations. Jennifer is giving new life to things that would otherwise go unused, unloved or be thrown away…
Jennifer completed a BA (hons) in Textiles (Print, Knit and Weave) in 1999 at Manchester Metropolitan University, is internationally exhibited, and has had her work featured in over 60 magazines and over 15 books to date.
Iain Perry a.k.a Print Garage: (Gallery Co-Director)
The image generation is a slow process of experimentation, of trial and error; collecting imagery, developing patterns and overlaying all the different elements until new and intriguing relationships emerge. The results are brightly lit beacons of balearic zen shining out amidst a visual, digital landscape that is in constant upheaval, upgraded and updated daily.
The act of printing is physical and repetitive and this repetition grounds me in the now, the analogue nature of this process delivers a physical and metaphorical date-stamp. The act of making art is as vital as ever, for me it is a quest to stop time itself – even if for just one brief moment.
My work borrows language from other art forms, film and photography, poetry, electronic music and rave culture – amalgamating, mixing and remixing, offering up familiar signs and signifiers but now refracted and reflected, illusive and allusive, all lightly seasoned with a slightly understated degree of subversion. Layers of fragmented iconography and geometry coalesce on the paper, like motes of dust trapped in a beam of light teasing us with a cheeky glimpse of a much bigger gestalt.
The resulting collection is a series of paeans to pigment, a psychedelic hallelujah to the handmade and handprinted, colour and tone poems that are a tiny bit joyful. "
Fran Buxton
“Ostranenie: encouraging people to see common things as strange, wild or unfamiliar; de-familiarizing what is known in order to know it more differently or more deeply”
As a magpie of treasures that others would deem mundane and invaluable ‘ostranenie’ fascinates Fran. Finding beauty in surfaces and objects that are blemished and imperfect, resonates within her whole practice; seeking to challenge the viewers perception of the familiar or previously overlooked.
Responding to her own photographs of surface pattern and texture, Fran works with mixed media/ textiles, balancing found objects (usually of a rusty variety!) with tactile mark making and meticulous stitch to create layered, often textural pieces.
Ruth Proud
With parents who were firmly embedded in the ‘make do and mend’ era Ruth grew up in the 1970’s where she and her four siblings were clothed in hand-knitted and hand-sewn garments and played with toys that were made from scraps of wood and old pram wheels. Nothing was discarded and everything ‘would come in handy one day’! Heavily influenced by this early introduction to the home spun Ruth carries on those family traditions when she creates her unique textile pieces. Using both machine and hand-stitched drawn elements combined with repurposed fabrics Ruth is inspired by the subjects that are close to her - family, home and garden - as the main themes for her two and three-dimensional works.
Deborah Davis
Deborah Davis is a garment maker and embroiderer with an interest in Victorian textiles and Pre- Raphaelites. An arts graduate, former pattern cutter, seamstress, qualified teacher, adult instructor and compulsive stitcher. Deb works with people of all ages, fashioning, mending and embellishing cloth in all its forms, working at all scales from a wedding dress to an upcycled fabric mouse. Her work encompasses the aesthetic, functional and expressive experimental interplay of cloth and thread to produce treasured keepsakes. Fanatic collector of all things haberdashery and a passionate advocate of the Suffolk puff and French knot. She is also a member of several sewing groups in Staffordshire.