WELCOME FROM OUR CHAIRS
As we look ahead to November, there is plenty happening across our PRISM community, and lots to share with you!
First, a big thank you to everyone who came to see PRISM: Out of the Box at the Knit + Stitch Show at Alexandra Palace. It was wonderful to share the exhibition with so many visitors, and we are delighted that it will now travel north to Harrogate Convention Centre in November. The show offers a fantastic opportunity to discover contemporary textile art, explore new materials and techniques, and find inspiration. If you are planning to visit, we would love to see you there!
We were also delighted that the Knit + Stitch Show invited us to create a series of video interviews with our members. In these, members talk about their practice and share the ideas and concepts behind their work. The interviews, along with walkthroughs of the exhibition, are available on our Vimeo channel.
For a closer look at PRISM: Out of the Box, photographer Jonathan Dredge, who has worked with PRISM on several occasions, has written a blog about the exhibition. Beautifully documented, it provides another perspective on the work and the artists involved. You can read his blog via the link below.
In this month's Member Spotlight, we begin introducing our new members and their work, starting with Philippa Ashcroft, Fiona Wyse, Becca Birtles, Adrian Smith, Ping Chen and Abigail Weston. They are among the 19 new members who joined us following our largest membership callout to date. Over the coming months, we will be featuring more of our new members, giving everyone the opportunity to get to know the talented artists and makers who make up our growing PRISM community.
We have also given our What's On blog a little refresh. Do take a look at the link below to discover what our members are up to, from exhibitions and workshops to talks and other events. There is plenty happening, and we hope you will find something that catches your interest.
Wishing you all a wonderful November. We look forward to seeing you in Harrogate or at one of our members' forthcoming events!
With best wishes,
Wolfgang Woerner, Chair
Jane Riley, Vice Chair
OUT OF THE BOX Alexandra Palace
Visit our VIMEO channel to watch all the member interviews and exhibition walkthroughs, and don’t forget to follow us to keep up with our latest videos!
PRISM: Out of the Box
A closer look at our exhibition by photographer Jonathan Dredge.
NEW MEMBERS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
PHILIPPA ASHCROFT
Driven by a delicate and intuitive approach to hand-stitching, Philippa bridges contemporary craft and fine art by using traditional embroidery techniques in a non-conformist style. She creates monochromatic abstract pieces, usually featuring subtle black-on-black or white-on-white stitching. Drawing inspiration from themes of motherhood and overlooked elements in nature, her work focuses on the small, quiet details hidden within everyday life - the tiny wonders. Her process is slow and meditative, acting as an intentional pursuit of calm in an overstimulated world.
Committed to environmental integrity, she consciously minimises textile waste by sourcing materials through second-hand channels. While her current textile practice contrasts with her background in props and scenic painting for the film industry, she brings a touch of that movie-making, 'nothing is impossible' attitude directly to her studio work.
FIONA WYSE
Fiona Wyse is a contemporary textile artist based in Wimbledon, London, working primarily in handwoven tapestry and tufted textiles. Her practice explores landscape, memory and material, drawing inspiration from everyday observations, travel and the changing colours, textures and atmosphere of the natural environment.
Photography and sketching provide starting points which Fiona abstracts through colour, line and texture. Rather than translating an image literally, she allows the materials and weaving process to influence the work as it develops, balancing planning with the unexpected. While rooted in traditional textile techniques, her practice continues to evolve through experimentation with scale, structure and materials. Recent work has explored taking tapestry beyond the conventional wall-based format and combining textiles with other materials through collaborative practice.
BECCA BIRTLES
Becca is a Deaf textile artist whose work draws on her experience of deafness and lipreading, exploring how hearing loss and background noise affect the perception of sound and communication. Using fabric, thread and a mix of machine and hand embroidery, she makes textured works that echo the distortion and complexity of hearing loss. The works also give form to the words, assumptions and unspoken meanings that shape encounters between Deaf and hearing people.
By layering materials and playing with what can and can't be read, Becca invites viewers to notice what is understood, overlooked or left unsaid. Her work opens out from personal experience to wider questions of identity, access and empathy between Deaf and hearing worlds.
ADRIAN SMITH
Adrian is based between Stirlingshire and the Orkney Islands. With a background in fashion design, having worked in Italy's fashion industry for over 25 years, he stepped back from fashion in 2019 and has since focused on a full-time practice as textile artist and painter.
He works in series, developing along thematic lines. Adrian draws significant inspiration from his childhood and immersion in Orkney's landscape, culture and folklore, and these elements are an ongoing influence and inspiration. The artwork is characterised by intricate fabric-manipulation techniques that create rich textural contrasts and gradient effects in both natural and vibrant colour palettes. His high-relief panels are often circular, and are intended as meditative and seductive. A current development of textile sculpture has inspired also an increase in scale.
PING CHEN
Ping (b. 2002, China) is a London-based artist and fashion designer working across experimental garments, wearable art and textiles. With a background in Design from Goldsmiths, University of London, his practice explores relationships between the body, identity, memory and material culture.
Rooted in personal experience and cultural reflection, Ping approaches clothing as both physical structure and cultural medium. Drawing on tailoring, weaving, knitting, digital textile processes and hand construction, he creates works that move between garments, textile objects and sculptural forms. His practice explores cultural heritage, masculinity, care, family memory and embodied experience through material experimentation and transformation.
ABIGAIL WESTON
Abigail is a London-based textile artist, specialising in knitted textiles. Her practice typically focuses on machine knitting techniques, using a domestic knitting machine.
Abigail's work is informed by her lived experiences, with a particular focus on mental illness. She connects with and responds to her emotions through her work, leading to authentic and deeply personal outcomes. Through these works, Abigail hopes to encourage engagement with often misunderstood or taboo subjects. Abigail enjoys exploring the use of different fibres, and she often incorporates different materials into her work. Together with the use of unexpected techniques, such as ripping and unravelling, she finds that she is able to express her emotions through a knitted surface.
