Materials Matter: an exhibition

Bringing an exciting collaboration to the Select A rt Trail in 2019 will be ceramicist Björk Haraldsdóttir and textile artist and printer Jacy Wall in ‘Materials Matter’
Two artists collaborate to bring a dazzling show of pattern and colour to delight and surprise.
There can’t be many tapestry weavers who delight in taking a pair of scissors to their work, but Jacy Wall is certainly one. She will often improvise on an idea in weave, and then when off the loom, cut, change, add, re-piece the work until it takes on a new life of its own. All of Jacy’s work, in both weave and print, is an interrogation of the qualities of textiles, through surfaces, pattern, structure, seams, thread and stitch. Black and white are often a backdrop to Jacy’s palette of nuanced tones of reds, blues, yellows in wool and linen which she dyes herself.

Björk Haraldsdottir’s ceramic work also has strong affinities with textiles with bold surface pattern. She makes hand built stoneware vessels, the large pieces having a majestic presence, influenced by her initial career as an architect. Her Nordic heritage becomes evident in their surfaces, which are reminiscent of old Icelandic and Celtic knitting and stitch patterns. Tones of blacks and soft whites again predominate, accented with reds and greys, the raw clay still evident in the carving of pattern through slips.
Both artists are innovative and truly inspiring in their approach to their work.
Björk graduated with first class honours and Masters in Architecture from Glasgow School of Art, whilst Jacy Wall has a BA Hons in Constructed Textiles (Middlesex Polytechnic) and an MA in multidisciplinary Printmaking (UWE Bristol).

Jacy has exhibited with SIT select before, at the Museum 2008 and at a Showcase in 2015, as well as a talk about her work and Arts Council funded project ‘The Nature of

Mending’ at the 2013 SIT Festival. Björk’s profile has been growing fast in London and the Southwest in recent years. This is her first show in Stroud. Both artists live and work in rural West Dorset.

Materials Matter is part of the Select Art Trail in 2019 – a celebration of fine arts from leading and emerging artists in exhibitions and events.

Read more about the artists:
http://www.ceramicsbybjork.com
http://www.jacywall.co.uk

Photo credits: MBW