Tabi Connolly

Textile art · West Yorkshire → Lisbon

Nature,
kept wild.

Hand-dyed, hand-stitched textile work. Made slowly. Made once.

See the work

Selected work

Look again.

Each piece is built to be looked at slowly. Look again, and there is usually something you did not catch the first time.

Every one begins as separate fragments. Dyed cloth, photo transfers of old family photographs, drawings, painted textures, gathered over months and stitched into one. Some edges are left raw, some are stitched down. The neat against the unfinished is where it comes alive.

In the studio

Cloth, stitch, and time.

I have been dyeing cloth for twenty-five years, and I still do it for the unpredictability. You set a colour going that you cannot fully control, then you take what comes out and turn it into something else.

A piece takes about three months, and half of that is thinking. I pick it up, put it down, leave it on the wall, and wait until I know what it needs next. The thinking is as much the work as the stitching is.

Then the building. Family photographs and painted textures transferred onto cloth, layered, and drawn over with a sewing machine. Some edges left raw, some stitched down. I keep going until it gives up something new every time I look at it.

About

I draw with a sewing machine.

My work is mixed media, built up in layers. Hand-dyed cloth, machine stitch, hand embroidery, and photo transfers carrying family photographs, drawings, and paintings I have made. I gather these pieces over time and bring them together into one, keeping some edges raw and stitching others down, so the neat sits against the unfinished.

I have been dyeing and stitching fabric for twenty-five years. What keeps me with both is the unpredictability. You make something you cannot fully control, then turn it into something else. A single piece takes around three months, and half of that is thinking. Picking it up, putting it down, letting it settle, working out what it needs next.

The work is rooted in nature. The sea, gardens, greenery, the places that bring me calm and steadiness. It is raw and untamed in its edges and its textures, and what I want you to feel is nostalgia, and interest, and the pull to look again. Each time, something new. A detail, a texture, something half-hidden you missed before.

I trained in printed textiles and taught for years before this became something I make to be looked at rather than used. I work from West Yorkshire, soon Lisbon, and I expect that move to find its way into the colour.

Every piece is one of a kind. Made slowly. Made to keep revealing itself.

Contact

Originals and commissions.

For exhibitions, commissions, or to see a portfolio, send a note.

Or find the work on @tabi.connolly