Contemporary Art

Ann Sutton: Contemporary Textiles as Art

Zuzanna Stańska 9 August 2022 min Read

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 were exhibited worldwide and featured in many public and private collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Ann Sutton,,Ann Sutton, Logical Weave Footstool, 1975. New Art Centre.
Ann Sutton, Logical Weave Footstool, 1975. New Art Centre.

Over the past five decades, Sutton 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 have a different appearance 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
Ann Sutton, Increasing Fringes no.2, 2015. Patrick Heide.

Although Sutton’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 that had yet to be explored. In her latest explorations, her sustained interest in experimenting with new techniques and processes is clearly visible.

Ann Sutton
Ann Sutton, Changeover (Serial Woven Studies), 1986. The Weave Shed.

Recommended

Contemporary Art

Why You Should Visit the Boros Collection in Berlin

The Boros Collection, alternatively called the Bunker of Berlin, Banana Bunker, and, according to the New York Times, the “Hardest Club on...

Kaena Daeppen 4 December 2023

Contemporary Art

5 Japanese Contemporary Artists You Have to Know

Japanese artistic tradition spans centuries and has a far-reaching influence. Today, the artistic scene in Japan is more dynamic than ever, and these...

Carlotta Mazzoli 27 November 2023

Gallery view of the Marina Abramović exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 23 September 2023 – 1 January 2024, showing Four Crosses (detail), 2019. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives. © Marina Abramović. Photo © Royal Academy of Arts, London / David Parry Contemporary Art

Marina Abramović at the Royal Academy in London

In 1997, Marina Abramović (b. 1946) attempted to scrub clean over 1,500 cows’ bones at the 47th Venice Biennale. The performance, titled Balkan...

Ania Kaczynska 9 November 2023

Contemporary Art

Indulge in Juicy! A New Exhibition by Florence Houston

Taking place at J/M Gallery, London, Florence Houston‘s upcoming exhibition Juicy! (1-7 November 2023) showcases delectable still lifes.

Isla Phillips-Ewen 26 October 2023