‘Small Worlds’ – Recycled textile art by Anne Kelly
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Anne is an artist, tutor and author living and working in Kent and exhibiting and teaching both in the UK and abroad. She trained in Canada and in the UK at Goldsmiths College, London. She was the recipient of two Greenshields Foundation scholarships. Her Fine Art degree, with printmaking and photography training has developed into her current layered mixed media and recycled textile art.
Anne collects and sources recycled textiles, paper and ephemera using collage and stitch to create both framed and unframed pieces. Her themes include travel, memory and vintage imagery from a variety of sources, taking inspiration from outsider art, naive and folk art and textiles. Her work has been described as like ‘small worlds’ and started life as mainly botanical in subject matter before developing into her current larger, more narrative works. Often it can be a small scrap or remnant of fabric that inspires a whole piece.
Anne exhibits widely in the South East of the UK, and organizes charity and group exhibitions for her local open studio organisation each year. She currently has work touring in Germany and Eastern Europe and has exhibited and sold work in Canada and the US. Anne has connected her exhibiting and travelling work with her teaching practice. She set up an award winning textile department in Kent, has recently taught at Bath University and conducted workshops in Canada in collaboration with an historic textile mill.
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Recycled textile art
Anne’s work is held in private collections in the UK and abroad. In 2010 she produced a commission for the Archdiocese of Southwark in London, which was presented to Pope Benedict XVI on his visit to the UK and is in the Vatican collection. She also exhibits and collaborates with textile artist Cas Holmes, as ‘Resonant Textiles’. They have co-written ‘Connected Cloth’, which is due out in September 2013.
“The intimacy of the close up view of nature in Anne Kelly’s framed wall pieces brought the viewer almost nose to flower… Her heavier and richer layered embroideries are made up of many types of fabric including recycled lace, string, vintage images and found ephemera. These pieces evoke a feel of memory and place. Anne Kelly’s work brought to the fore a contemporary take on traditional textiles”
Review of two person ‘Natural histories’ touring exhibition, by Brenda Parsons
Embroidery magazine, March/April 2010
‘Sparrow Stories’ – Saving Sparrows
Anne is exhibiting recycled textile art in two solo exhibitions close to her home in Kent this summer and is keen to contribute some of her sales to the RSPB, in aid of their conservation work.
She is asking for house sparrow themed contributions of photos, drawings, textile pieces, poems, lyrics or scans/copies of all of the above to participate in her solo show. Details are on her blog under the ‘Sparrow Stories’ page.
Book:
‘Connected Cloth’, co-written with Cas Holmes, is available on Amazon
Other information about Anne’s work:
Her website is www.annekellytextiles.com
Articles and inspiration for artists, educators and students ‘Clothbound’ blog at annekellytextiles.wordpress.com
For up to date information about her current exhibitions and events her blog is annekellytextiles.blogspot.co.uk
Anne Kelly is available for commissioned work and for talks and workshops about her work. She is a selected artist for workshops at the Jersey Textile Showcase in March 2014.
Anne’s solo touring show ‘Small Worlds‘ will be at the Crowborough Centre, Pine Grove, Crowborough from 3 – 17 July and Trinity Town and Country Gallery, Tunbridge Wells from 10 – 29 September.
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Wonderful. Real detailed textile work . Makes you look closer, and smile.
This is really beautiful work but none of it is recycled! We are using the term incorrectly and it undermines the true purpose of recycling. She reuses materials in order to avoid them going to the dump but she is not recycling them. Recycling is a very specific process that has limitations and restrictions. Reduce, reuse, recycle–this falls into the reuse category.