Harriet Culingford's project

My initial starting point for this project was the idea of a journey from A to B; this led to the concept of 'from freedom to captivity'. To begin with folk art and traditional techniques played a large part of my research, also artists such as Joseph Beuys and Ai Weiwei enthused the idea of multiples. This translated into the vision of creating two separate feels that could merge together or hold their own as separate groupings. The first grouping being 'freedom', very bright fresh images quite craft-based digital prints, the second being, 'held captive' which involved very dark moody screen-printed rough textured fabrics.

I really wanted to explore texture within my prints to create a very tactile collection, experimenting with both digital and screen. Inspired by Michael van der Ham’s 2011 spring collection and his mixture of fabrics and the merging of their weights led me to play with finishes on surfaces, layering, stitching, scanning, cutting, bonding and heating. For me texture and techniques have been a large driving force for this collection really pushing my technical knowledge and making me think twice. Therefore keeping the screened imagery simplistic and mark-making themed has been an absolute must allowing me to concentrate on surface quality.