I recently went to see an exhibition entitled ‘London Life’, by the twelve members of Phoenix Contemporary Textiles. It was held in the Library at The Barbican, London. There was much to enjoy…
I do love altered books, so ‘Altered Book – Spoon’ by Maria Walker caught my eye immediately with its textile spoon and a suggestion of a willow pattern plate behind, perhaps?
She also made ‘Altered Book – Hair Comb’ where the attractive sinuous shapes of the comb worked beautifully against the print fabric behind.
Roberta Mcpherson’s piece ‘Bridge in Sunlight, Southwark’ was an intriguing, multi-layered architectural study, including clever use of transparent fabrics, as seen in the detail photo below.
Patti Taylor exhibited well-observed and engaging London scenes involving people. The street scene ‘Rush Hour’ was a well-observed moment in a busy city.
Her witty study of ‘man-spreading’ entitled ‘Oh Really?’ made me smile.
Jo Coombes’ ‘Under the Arches’ made use of print, fabric, lace, paper , found objects, weaving and stitch to create an intriguing textural piece.
Joan West made three-dimensional pieces, including ‘Ancient Bark Vessel’ – a highly textured woven and knotted sphere, looking almost like a sea-urchin in shape.
She was also the maker of ‘Plane Tree Scales’, made of cotton threads, made of wrapped and bound together ropes, making interesting curvy shapes.
This is just a fraction of the textiles that were on show. I’m so pleased I managed to see the exhibition before it finished and will look out in the future for work by this talented group.
Thank you for reading my blog. I publish Quilt Patterns, design Fabrics and teach Classes – find these from the top menu on the Home page.
Click the ‘Follow’ button get get a blog post each Monday.
This is my fabric design’Lace’ – you can find it on Spoonflower here
Amanda Jane Textiles 