Apart of Us
Category: Interior
Competitions: Home Competition 2025
My most recent project, ‘Apart of Us’, is a concept that explores the interconnections between humanity and the natural world through a combination of experimental and technical approaches. Our worldly ecosystem is continuously regenerating. It creates and processes over and over again, each time managing to grow and evolve into something beautiful. I have created this piece as part of a collection as an emotive response to the delicate, ethereal and vibrant grace of the natural environment. Throughout my practice, I have prioritised the use of natural fibres, in particular, recycled cotton twill and upcycled habotai silk. Using such materials will allow my textile art to either decompose naturally over time or to be reused continually until it no longer exists. As an artist, I wanted to express my sustainable ethos through natural processes that do not compromise the natural environment, utilising eco-printing and natural dyes derived from vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Within this piece, I combined red onion skin, red cabbage, marigold flower buds, tumeric, white vinegar and lemon juice to create the vivid explosion of colours. Elements of my natural dyeing journey have been influenced by Kristine Vejar’s ‘The Modern Natural Dyer’ book, where she unveils a whole rainbow of colours created using only plant dyes. Further mediums I have used within this piece include cyanotype print onto upcycled habotai silk, with free-motion embroidery of abstract flora, imagined from the forms within the naturally dyed grounds. This sample is versatile as it can be exhibited as an expressive wall hanging piece or a sustainable design and material option for interior textiles, such as bedding or cushion covers. My aim as an artist is to create emotive responses that empower action against the negative impacts imposed on our planet and raise awareness of the importance of both humanity's and nature's well-being. In future projects, I will continue to elaborate on the diverse beauty of the natural world through a variety of processes and experimentation as a textile artist. “The whole of life is coming to terms with yourself and the natural world. Why are you here? How do you fit in? What’s it all about?” – Sir David Attenborough. There is a balance, an equilibrium to sustain. If we take, we must give back. Humanity is apart from nature. But nature is a part of us.
