Textile Study Group

artists and tutors sharing ideas imagination and skills

Sheila Mortlock

Artist statement

Colour and texture are the continuous threads running through all my work. After graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in printed textiles and stitch, I trained as a teacher and taught art in secondary schools within the Dundee area for many years. Although I have always produced work for exhibitions as a group member, an opportunity to teach City & Guilds Stitched Textiles at Dundee College of FE started me on my current path. Teaching in the Textiles Department gave me many chances that pushed my work, including three short spells teaching at a College in Delhi. I also staged an exhibition with one of my Fine Art colleagues in 2010.

In my sketchbooks I enjoy mixed media and collaging papers which link directly into my textiles. I enjoy textural mark making and my stitches are interpretations of those drawn marks. I enjoy the interpretive qualities of stitch and while I am mostly known as a hand stitcher recently I have been including some machining into my work. My early interest in the printed surface to create texture is still evident in my pieces and I experiment with a variety of simple printing techniques including mono and screen printing to create the surface texture.

I joined the Textile Study Group in 2013. Teaching has always been very important to me and I enjoy participating in workshops with students, seeing them develop their practice. After producing a series of work interpreting marks in stone and a series developed from ideas inspired by travels in India, I am currently starting to explore Boundaries, in particularly the markers that can be found around the crofts of the North West of Scotland.

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