My playful textile surfaces explore universal themes, telling visual stories emerging from masses of drawings of inconsequential moments. Drawing is central to my practice, and I love to develop sequences whilst moving between drawing, print and stitch to create cloths at various scales. I enjoy quirky humour and peculiar personalities which I explore and
present within real and imaginary worlds.
Using print processes to translate my drawn images onto cloth, I add and subtract marks and patternmaking through hand stitch. Printing enables endless repetition possibilities, so characters appear in different guises and scales.
I’m interested in the haptic qualities of stitch and cloth, exploring relationships between touch and vision. My synaesthesia impacts my use of colour and I make richly coloured, tactile surfaces which I like to present as multidirectional cloths.
Over 45 years, my work has evolved from large-scale machine embroidery to smaller scale work often made up of multiple elements. After teaching at Manchester School of Art for 30 years, I now work as an artist from studios in Stockport and at Suite in Salford.
