To Boldy Sew: Textile Art by Alice Kettle

This exhibition is open to the public daily, 7am - 7pm.

Brookfield Properties and the Crafts Council present an exhibition of work by Alice Kettle, winner of the fourth annual Brookfield Properties Craft Award.

British artist Alice Kettle is renowned for her intricate, complex textile pieces, in which she combines hand and machine stitch in textile techniques including embroidery and patching. Her work is visually and conceptually textural and distinctive in its delicate colour palette, graphic line and hand-drawn style. This exhibition brings together a selection of Kettle's significant works, showcasing the breadth of her practice and technical mastery. Though trained in fine art, Kettle's work is deeply rooted in traditional textile practices, she also incorporates innovative and contemporary techniques, pushing the boundaries of the medium. She works on both the front face and reverse of each work layering colours, processes and threads, stitching free-hand from the back.  A recurrent motif is the use of the figure to present personal and universal themes, featuring real and fictional characters that are navigating a range of situations and events.  Kettle's work explores notions of memory, identity, and community, and her pieces often feature intricate, figurative compositions that capture the essence of the human experience; drawing on political events from the personal to the wider, shared experience.

The works displayed in 99 Bishopsgate present a collection of Kettle's motifs – the three figures observing their surroundings, the vastness of the sea, of swimming, and figurative portraits all questioning our relationships with our world and surroundings.

Alice Kettle is a professor of Textile Arts at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University. This exhibition is a collaborative project, curated by Brookfield Properties and the Crafts Council, with the artist.

See the second part of this exhibition To Boldy Sew: Textile Art by Alice Kettle on display in 30 Fenchurch Street, London.

VIEW MORE HERE about the Brookfield Properties Craft Award 2023 >>