Helen MacRitchie
Waterstock, Oxfordshire, UK
I am a textile artist based in Oxfordshire, UK, working in both the UK and Australia having lived in the latter for many years.
My practice explores personal connections to the landscape around me, focusing upon the texture and detail found in nature and science. With an academic pharmacy background, I often use scientific and medicinal subjects as inspiration in my work. I have a love of natural dyeing, particularly its ability to link nature with chemistry in my work.
Wet felting of wool plays a significant part in my practice. I love its connection with land and place, and the feel in my hands as it organically transforms from loose fibre to structural fabric. My felt is often blended with other natural fabrics or combined with unusual mixed media in a completed work. Extensive free machine or hand embroidery then adds texture and layers of detail relevant to the design narrative.
I have exhibited solely in the UK and Australia and am currently an exhibiting member of seamCollective in the UK and Untethered Fibre Artists in Australia.
Photographs: Nicole Anderson