ELEMENTAL PATTERNS
Rachel Johnston & Philip Sanderson
8th to 19th November 2023

Preview drinks Thursday 9th Nov 6-8pm

Gallery Open Tuesday-Sunday 12-4pm
Closed Monday

Rachel Johnston and Philip Sanderson work with textile process, using the structures of weaving and cloth as the basis for experiment. Working with and against traditional techniques, this exhibition will show developing work that celebrates the narratives associated with cloth as well as its qualities of familiarity and mutability. This show will include 2 practical workshops.

Rachel will be showing woven and stitched artworks that experiment with thread as a medium for drawing, some made during a residency earlier this year at Søndre Green in Norway, supported by Norske tekstilkunstnere.  Other works have developed from this point using text to consider the ways we define places materially and through language. Rooted in ideas of landscape and the experience of place, the figure has begun to feature in recent stitch drawings, the human form located in a visual space where the cloth stands in for water, land and earth.

Søndre Shoes “I’ve been making shoes as artwork for many years - the first ones were etched copper with maps, more recently they have been woven structures made with yarn and wire. The idea, simply, is that they represent a place and a moment in time, becoming shaped through the process of wearing. This particular set were made during a residency at Søndre Green in Norway earlier this year - I used old fabrics that had been on the farm for generations and some that had been woven by Kristin the owner. I created them to fit my foot (as usual) and wore them in the rivers and lakes nearby, in ice and sun.” Rachel Johnston

Philip will be showing a new collection of work expanding on ideas developed during a residency at the ‘Experimental Weave Lab’ held in the City of London and supported by the Clothworkers Company in summer 2022. The work explores the values of texture and pattern, used imaginatively and at different scales within the tradition of tapestry weaving

Rachel Johnston studied painting before completing an MA in Fine Art Tapestry at the Royal College of Art. She has worked with communities around the UK to produce commissioned and public art and was for many years a senior lecturer in Fine Art at the University of Chichester. She is a member and studio holder at Art Space Portsmouth and has exhibited widely. Recent shows have included ‘All Rivers Run North’ at the West Gallery, Quay Arts in Newport, Isle of Wight. Group shows have included the Cordis Prize for Tapestry exhibitions and collaboration with fellow artists for Soft Geometry. Rachel received a Theo Moorman Trust Award in 2018 to support her practice as a tapestry weaver and is currently developing work inspired by an artist residency in Norway in 2023 supported by Norske textilkunstnere. 

Philip Sanderson studied tapestry weaving at Middlesex Polytechnic and The Royal College of Art before Joining the West Dean Tapestry Studio as a professional weaver in 1993.  He has also designed and woven tapestries for a variety of spaces including Portcullis House, Chelmsford Cathedral and Mercers Hall in the City of London. Philip is currently Subject Tutor for Tapestry programmes at West Dean College and has run a number of tapestry weaving workshop sessions at The Royal College of Art. Recent exhibitions include ‘Here and Now’ “the first major curated exhibition of contemporary tapestry in England for over 20 years”

In 2022 Philip was invited to be a resident of the Experimental Weave Lab, the City of London's first contemporary & innovative weaving programme. Philip is a member of Art Space Portsmouth.

Philip and Rachel are part of the Soft Geometry group of four Portsmouth-based artists who explore textiles as a fine art language and exhibit together regularly.