Joanna Kinnersly-Taylor

Textile Artist and Designer

About the maker

'I am a printed textile artist and designer and work from my ‘WASPS’ studio in Glasgow, where I produce a wide range of textiles, from architectural commissions to domestic linens. There is a theme of memory and the home running through much of my work and photographing the everyday or commonplace is often a starting point. 

Images have their context altered through being magnified, manipulated or abstracted, and are translated through a series of layers to create new intimate ‘landscapes’.  Experimenting with scale and repetition, I create layers and visual rhythms that evoke a sense of recognition and seek to capture a particular moment, atmosphere or environment.

Graduating in 1988 from what is now known as University College for the Creative Arts (Farnham, Surrey), I established my printed textile studio soon after with the help of a Crafts Council setting-up grant.  I moved north of the border in 1994 and completed a Master of Design degree at Glasgow School of Art.

From early on I had a love of fabric, but it was printed textiles in particular that proved to be the medium that I found I was best able to express my ideas.  I enjoy the multi-layering and repetition that screen-printing allows, but also the fact that once all the planning has been done, there is still plenty of room for spontaneity.

Cloth is such an evocative and versatile material with which to work; I am particularly seduced by natural fabrics and currently enjoy working on linen and wool.  I love turning a plain white piece of cloth into something totally unique, with a new spirit and identity. 

Colour testing and accuracy is important and I maintain detailed technical dye records, which accompany my samples.  This expertise has led to some historical dyeing and printing projects for, amongst others, House for an Art Lover and Hill House.

Specialising in site-specific, often large-scale wallhangings and panels for public, domestic and gallery spaces, I have carried out commissions for a variety of environments that have included a castle, a crematorium chapel, a hospital dining room, a theatre and a new office building on a Science & Technology Park.  My most recent public works include textiles sited in the new wing to the Mater Hospital in Belfast and ‘Wavelengths’, a temporary external project for Northern Print Studio in North Shields, near Newcastle.  This encompassed ‘Shawl Currents’, three ‘balcony aprons’ for the Fisherman’s Mission, ‘Shore Currents’, a five metre digitally-printed banner, and printed aprons and Wellingtons for fish wholesalers and filleters on the quayside.

I launched my first collection of hand-printed table linen in 2001 and have since introduced two further ranges, showing them for the first time at Chelsea Crafts Fair in 2002 and 2003 respectively; all my designs take inspiration from a culinary theme.  Through an agent, I am hoping to develop my market into the United States, where the ‘Jellies and Cutlery’ range will be produced, freeing up my printing time to pursue other projects.  Japan is another marketplace I am exploring and in 2005, I was one of twenty one designers selected by the Crafts Council to participate in a trade mission there.  With the help of a Professional Development Award from the Scottish Arts Council, I researched retail outlets, galleries and commissioning agencies in Tokyo and Kyoto.

My work has been exhibited widely, both in the UK and abroad and often as a member of the ’62 Group of Textile Artists’; it has also appeared in books, magazines and on television.  I am a tutor for the Open College of the Arts (affiliated to the Open University) and also run intensive, five day courses from my studio.

In my role as a research lecturer at Glasgow School of art, I wrote ‘Dyeing and Screen-printing on Textiles’, (published by A & C Black in 2003), a technical manual, which has proved popular for students and professionals alike.  Keen to expand my experience and technical knowledge, I would now like to work with an architect to explore fully integrated, site-specific textiles with emphasis on alternative applications.  In this respect, I hope to utilise the new technology of the digital printer at the ‘Centre for Advanced Textiles’ at GSA, and combine this with other processes.'