I am an artist with a passion for texture, surface, and pattern. I create one off printed and stitched abstract pieces.
I gain inspiration wherever I travel this is often found in the insignificant and overlooked. Weathered and worn paintwork, rusting metal or a tangle of wires can all be intriguing. I aim to create pieces that realise their aesthetic qualities, challenging perceptions of beauty in our surroundings. Where rotting wood can become a multifaceted surface of overlapping threads and mould a lacelike intricate print. Crumbling walls are transformed into the tactile and beautiful.
Initially I study the photographs I’ve taken of a specific place or object. Then I work with its qualities, colour, form, texture and composition, creating hand dyed and screen printed images onto fabric. These fabrics are then either left as they are or they may be manipulated, torn, ripped, layered and further worked on with stitch by hand and machine. I work intuitively responding to what develops; pieces are often constructed only to be deconstructed. The pieces evolve over time and the process can take weeks or often months.
Susan Hotchkis