Ann Sutton has become one of the foremost textile artists in the UK. Her career began in the 1960s, when she trained as a weaver. By the age of 21 she was running the Weave Department at West Sussex College. Later, her works has been exhibited worldwide and featured in many public and private collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Ann Sutton, courtesy of The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

Over the past five decades Ann has been experimenting, exploring and working with weaving, until she felt she had done everything she could with this technique. She has a fascination with the grid structure which is fundamental to weaving and is evident in her new work which she describes as “spatial drawings”. These three dimensional drawings appear different depending on which angle you view them from. In this, her most recent body of work, the grid is the starting point for nearly all of the pieces.

Ann Sutton, courtesy of The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

Ann Sutton, courtesy of The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

Although Ann’s work has a strong element of craft, she doesn’t describe herself as a craftsperson, but as a maker. She is fascinated by the potential of the materials – in the 1960s she worked with plastic, a new material which had yet to be explored. In her latest explorations, her sustained interest in experimenting with new techniques and processes is clearly visible.

Ann Sutton, 1 – 11 Floor Pad, 1974

Until 27th August in Potteries Museum and Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent you can see the exhibition of her works, Ann Sutton, On The Grid. The show focuses on a new body of work created over the last two years and has been inspired by Ann’s travels and her interest in the movement of the line that takes place on her journeys.