Past Exhibitions
30th October 2019 until 3rd January 2020
Farfield Mill, Garsdale Road, Sedbergh, Cumbria, LA10 5LW
Weaving Water – Woven Lands exhibition website
Groups: North of England (UK) and Scotland (UK)
Weaving Water – Woven Lands
As artists we are often inspired by place and the incredible landscape that surrounds us. Beautiful rolling hills, dramatic seascapes, the textures and colours of where we come from gives endless inspiration to artists who weave. Surrounded by water, with over 6000 miles of coastline, Scotland has more than 790 islands and over 30,000 lochs and lochans and almost 500 Munroes and Corbetts. How could we not be inspired by what is around us!
For opening times and directions visit: https://www.farfieldmill.org/visit/
7th May 2019 until 11th May 2019
Jubilee Library, Brighton, England
Group: South East
A Riot Of Small Woven Tapestries
The South East British Tapestry Group showing their small woven pieces at Jubilee Library in Brighton. A weaver was present to demonstrate the art of weaving.
Mike Ran interviews Sarah McLean in this video for Latest Brighton on 15 May 2019: A Riot of Small Woven Tapestries exhibition pops up at Jubilee Library, Brighton.
22nd November 2018 until 24th February 2019
The Stables Gallery, London, England
Rhythm of the Weave exhibition website
Group: National
Rhythm of the Weave
Challenged to recognise rhythms and create your own unique voice within the act of weaving a tapestry
The nature of tapestry weaving is built on the rhythm we develop as we are weaving away. Our fingers work on one section while our minds work at the challenge of the next part. Each piece conforms to a specific size limit to enable the creation of a cohesive flow within the installation. A theme or a thread which runs through and links each piece.
Sound and Weave
Contemporary Woven Art Inspired by Sound
An innovative exhibition which introduces the concept of sound, extending the horizons of this woven form and embracing a multi-disciplinary approach. Tapestry is longer the two-dimensional historical document of myth and expression of wealth, but a strong visual medium highlighting the interplay between colour, light, texture and sound.
March 2019
UWTSD Swansea College of Art
Swansea, Wales
November 2018 to February 2019
The Stables Gallery
London, England
August – September 2018
Gracefield Arts Centre
Dumfries, Scotland
21st June 2018 until 27th June 2018
Hepsibah Gallery, London, England
Group: London
21st April 2018 until 28th April 2018
UPSTAIR@ J & G INNES, St Andrews, Scotland
4th April 2018 until 21st April 2018
Haslemere Museum, Haslemere, England
Group: South East
2nd August 2016 until 31st August 2016
Dunblane Museum, Scotland
Each Day has a Colour exhibition website
Group: Scotland
9th June 2016 until 19th June 2016
Hepsibah Gallery, London, England
The Real Weave exhibition website
Group: London
Symbiosis
In the year that Hastings is commemorating the 950 year anniversary of the Battle of Hastings with the Root 1066 International Festival of contemporary arts, it is appropriate that the British Tapestry Group brings woven tapestry to the town that is so closely connected with the embroidery called ‘The Bayeux Tapestry’.
Each weaver shows their personal interpretation in their tapestry weaving, resulting in a diverse and inventive collection of work, some taking the natural world as inspiration, others focus on the way that ideas interact in warp and weft.
April – May 2016
Hastings Arts Forum
St Leonards on Sea, England
March – April 2016
Mill House
Angmering, England
25th July 2015 until 18th October 2015
Verdant Works, Dundee, Scotland
The Golden Fibre
BTG Scotland Group’s exhibition inspired by jute
An exhibition of small format tapestries, woven by Scottish Members held at The Verdant Works, Dundee,25th July to 8th October 2015. Many of the tapestries have links to the city, incorporating jute, reflecting the history of the Verdant Works.
19th June 2015 until 24th June 2015
Hepsibah Gallery, London, England
Group: London
This is woven tapestry!
The exhibition aims to show what tapestry is and what it can encompass. Often mistaken for needlepoint, hand woven tapestry is the art of using weft-faced weaving to express a range of images, emotions and ideas in material form. Whatever you thought tapestry was, prepare to be surprised and amazed.
8th October 2014 until 23rd November 2014
Knitting and Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace and Harrogate, England
Group: National
Woven Art ’14
To promote tapestry weaving to a wider audience.
Educate about techniques and the wide variety of styles, shapes and sizes that are possible.
Read an illustrated report below.
The contemporary woven tapestries shown in the Woven Art ’14 Catalogue were on display at the following venues: Knitting and Stitching Show, Alexandra Palace London from 8-12 October 2014 and Knitting and Stitching Show, Harrogate International Centre from 20 – 23 November.
The aims of the exhibition are to promote tapestry weaving to a wider audience and provide education about techniques and the wide variety of styles, shapes and sizes that are possible.
The exhibition was open to all BTG members, and 98 entries were received from 46 members, a remarkably high response. Selection of the work to be shown was undertaken by our Curator, Hillu Liebelt – a renowned weaver in her own right. Commenting on the selection, Hillu stated:
“It has been a difficult task to select among such a good and varied choice, knowing that the space we shall have in the stands is rather limited. I have tried to gather together a selection of different techniques, materials, styles and sizes and have managed to find a space for 44 pieces (of 98) by 33 (of 46) weavers. It has been both enjoyable and a privilege, as well as a huge responsibility, to select and arrange the work for this exhibition. Today woven tapestries are rightly regarded as a part of the fine art world, and this exhibition will serve to reinforce this“.
Hillu Liebelt
The BTG and the exhibition Team are enormously grateful to Hillu for all the work she has done, her guidance and willingness to share her experience.
The following photographs of the BTG gallery at Alexandra Palace are copyright of Hilary O’Connell:
BTG members Jackie Bennett and Roger Dickinson demonstrating
For more detailed pictures of individual pieces, see the Woven Art ’14 online catalogue.
24th May 2014 until 13th July 2014
Nuneaton Art Gallery and Museum, Nuneaton, England
26th April 2014 until 14th December 2014
Howgill Gallery
Farfield Mill, Sedbergh, England
Scott Gallery
Hawick Museum, Hawick, Scotland
18th April 2014 until 27th April 2014
Mill House Gallery, Angmering, England
12th January 2013 until 23rd February 2013
Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Scotland
Group: National
Tapestry Mischief
Historic influences and contemporary mischief. Members of the British Tapestry Group explore the medium of tapestry taking historical tapestries as the starting point, showing new work, some fragments of historic tapestries and accompanying interpretive material. Taking any aspect of the original such as an image, pattern or use of colour, the weavers have created highly individual contemporary interpretations using sometimes radical methods, fibres and colours, challenging the conventional form and surface of tapestry and its historical role as a narrative medium.
5th August 2011 until 23rd October 2011
The Stables Gallery, London, England
Group: National
7th June 2008 until 28th September 2008
UK wide
Group: National
Tapestry 08 Halifax
Bankfield Museum
Halifax, England
Dean Clough Gallery
Halifax, England
Tapestry 08 was developed by BTG, and funded by the Arts Council, to be a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary work by British tapestry weavers.
Tapestry 08 was much more than an exhibition. Demonstration days, seminars and a National Conference were held to encourage dialogue between practitioners.
Read a report below:
Tapestry 08 was developed by BTG, and funded by the Arts Council, to be a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary work by British tapestry weavers. This was long overdue, as the last overview of British tapestry weaving, The British Tapestry Trienniale 2, was in 1998 at the Harley Gallery at Wellbeck.
Tapestry 08 was much more than an exhibition. The tapestry weavers developing activities for Tapestry 08 were concerned that perceptions of the medium were tied to connotations of the historical. Outreach work with schools and young people, with students and the general public needed incorporating into the event to raise awareness of contemporary tapestry weaving. Demonstration days, seminars and a National Conference were held to encourage dialogue between practitioners.
Review:
Tapestry 08 was developed by BTG, and funded by the Arts Council, to be a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary work by British tapestry weavers. Tapestry 08 was much more than an exhibition. Demonstration days, seminars and a National Conference were held to encourage dialogue between practitioners.
The Exhibition:
The range of scale, from the miniature, as in Joyce Coulton’s ‘sketchbook’ pieces, to the monumental ‘Arizona Quartet’ by Shirley Ross, was exciting and, whilst some pieces were extremely bold in colour and composition, such as Fiona Rutherford’s ‘Up and Up’ or Kirsten Glasbrook’s ‘Soul Birds’, others are infinitely subtle. A piece by Soon Yul Kang, ‘Meditation’ slowly reveals its subtleties rewarding close scrutiny and time to enter into its atmospheric and inner world. Other pieces similarly reward close attention, the iridescent, twilight visions of Elin Huws and the shimmering, shifting landscapes in Beryl Hammill’s ‘Weaving the Country; Pilbara’.
Together these works exemplify the potential and diversity of tapestry weaving, from the hugely complex sculptural cell structures of Margaret Crowther’s ‘Fandango’ to the restrained geometry of ‘Thin Ice’ by Hillu Liebelt or the subtly vicious piece by Alastair Duncan, seductive at a distance, deeply disturbing at close quarters (incorporating barbed wire – see below). The work is accessible for both those who have never seen tapestries to those familiar with or immersed in the process of creating them.
The qualities of colour and surface in tapestries attract – warp and weft impose structure which harmonises compositional elements, be they representational, illusionistic or abstract in content. Viga Slater’s ‘Broadband’ pieces play upon indigo, cerise and viridian, painstakingly evoking painterly strokes and mottled stripes. Jilly Edwards’ fascinating double sided, tiny compositions on a continuous roll record her responses to changing seasons, use colour and light which mutate from the soft greens and pale yellows through to near monochrome and midnight hues spiked by tiny lines and spots of pinks and vermilions. These pieces are quiet but intense distillations of visual experience. It is the commitment and time embedded in these works which make a sustained visit so worthwhile. At the Bankfield Museum the second part of the exhibition presented an equally varied range of pieces including the representationally complex ‘My September 11’ by Christopher Sanders, referencing twenty first century technology and institutions, mass media and advertising, all painstakingly woven – a rich contradiction in every way, pushing the medium to express the transient and banal. This very large piece is in stark contrast to the beautifully subtle, near abstract ‘October Landscape’ by Joan Baxter with its hazy undulating bands of colour suggestive of windblown moorland and watery horizons.
This was flanked by other sensitive atmospheric pieces, Ros Bryant’s ‘Furthest Ebb’ and Sallie Tyszko’s ‘Island of 3 Stones’ both evoke beach and early morning light in very different ways, the latter incorporating fragments of driftwood which hold a warp woven with mica and monofilament suggesting floating jetsam and reflections.
Tapestry 08 considered how we present tapestry and what informs the making process, both conceptually and practically, to create new, stimulating work for the 21st century. Several works challenged the surface and form of conventional tapestry and question tapestry as ‘woven painting’. Non-traditional materials are incorporated and relief structures are created, moving some pieces towards the sculptural.
Other works articulate concepts and ideas, focusing on subject material that references contemporary culture whilst remaining true to the historical role of tapestry as a narrative medium. The exhibition signalled how tapestry weaving may develop.
Several pieces showed that traditional notions of narrative sequence can be disrupted, re-ordered and re-considered and the conventional role of tapestry as a direct woven interpretation of an image can be challenged.
Tapestry 08 Exhibition Review
Sonja Andrew, Lecturer in Textiles, University of Manchester
Ann Seabourne, painter
1st July 2006 until 15th July 2006
Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, England
Group: National
Tapestry Today
The inaugural exhibition for the British Tapestry Group, showing the work of 31 invited tapestry weavers from all over Britain and representing a wide cross-section of work being produced today. The tapestries have a diverse subject matter and the scale varies from small jewel-like weavings to large dramatic pieces. Uniting the artists is their overwhelming fascination and excitement with the weaving process and the use of yarns.
