Midweek meander.

Aoyama Window Cloth, detail.

Today I thought that we would look at the wonderful work of Matthew Harris.

Aoyama Window Cloth, detail.

Matthew Harris is a graduate of the textile course at Goldsmiths College and has been working with textiles since 2000, having for the previous ten years made and exhibited drawings and works on paper. He has shown in a number of group and solo exhibitions throughout the U.K, Ireland and Japan.

Ayoama window notebook. Mixed media on stitched paper, 

Design development drawings - cartoon for cloth.

Matthew Harris makes work that employs dying, cutting and hand stitching. It is concerned primarily with abstract imagery and the translation of drawn marks into cloth. By making work that is pieced, patched and assembled, he aims to create pieces that explore repetition, pattern and the disrupted or dissonant journey of line and image across and through the surface of cloth.

Echo Cloth. 96x67cm.

Dyed, cut and hand hand stitched cloth.

Echo Cloth. 96x67cm.

Dyed, cut and hand stitched cloth.

For me the appeal of Matthews cloths are the loose painterly marks, the colour choices and the way that the cloths are pieced together. The type of stitching is used as another layer of mark making and the constant re cutting and piecing results in complex works of art, I think the work also  helps us to better understand the making process. His cloths have so much life within them and every piece has considered thought in both design and process. Matthews sketchbooks are beautiful pieces within their own right and his mark making makes me want to get out my inks and start to draw and create.

To see more of this work www.matthewharriscloth.co.uk you can also find more work on flickr in Hatthew Harris and Gary Breeze photostream, enjoy.