9cb Mnemonic by Caroline Bartlett, wooden canvas stretchers, battening, stretched linen, pigment, 16" x 52", 2003. Photo by Tom Grotta
9cb Mnemonic by Caroline Bartlett, wooden canvas stretchers, battening, stretched linen, pigment, 16″ x 52″, 2003. Photo by Tom Grotta

UK artist Caroline Bartlett is a student of textiles and assembler of experiences as much as she is a textile artist. “The historical, social and cultural associations of textiles, their significance in relation to touch and their ability to trigger memory become central to ideas,” she says. “Textiles are at the core of my practice, providing the means and materials to process and articulate ideas, but often also acting as the reference point in relation to content.” 

Detail of The Great Green Wall by Caroline Bartlett, linen/hemp, cotton, porcelain, perspex, 20” x 56” x 1”, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta
Detail of The Great Green Wall by Caroline Bartlett, linen/hemp, cotton, porcelain, perspex, 20” x 56” x 1”, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta
Finding a method

Bartlett had plans to become a 3D Designer, she told Daniel in an interview for Textileartist.orgThat intention was altered when Bartlett found her strengths lay in the 2D sphere. “Weekends were spent browsing the Victoria and Albert Museum and I discovered those wonderful pullout drawers that were in the textile section; each a total surprise.” She followed her growing interest through a BA course in printed textiles. However, it was at a time when printed textile design was carried out in flat painted gouache. “I spent my last year going partially against the prescribed grain and trying rather unsuccessfully to exploit and develop surface qualities through knitting and quilting, without being clear what it was that engaged me. Later, on the Post Graduate Textile Diploma course at Goldsmiths, I started to explore print in combination with methods of manipulation and had my answer.”

18cb Pulse by Caroline Bartlett, linen/hemp, cotton, porcelain, perspex, 43" × 108" × 1.5", 2018. Photo by Ton Grotta
18cb Pulse by Caroline Bartlett, linen/hemp, cotton, porcelain, perspex, 43″ × 108″ × 1.5″, 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta

As a result, imprinting, erasing and reworking, stitching, folding and unfolding became defining characteristics in her work. More recently, explorations like Pulse have also resulted in works that integrate textiles with other media such as porcelain. Pulse draws on ideas of ephemerality and the cyclical nature of growth and change. In The Great Green Wall, allusion is made is made to an African-led project proposed in 2007 and to be completed by 2030. This symbol of hope has the ambitious intention of growing a 4,000-mile natural wonder across the width of Africa from Senegal to Djibouti involving 11 countries.

20cb Meeting Point by Caroline Bartlett Mono-printed, stitched and manipulated linen, cotton threads 60” x 16.5,” 2020
20cb Meeting Point by Caroline Bartlett Mono-printed, stitched and manipulated linen, cotton threads 60” x 16.5,” 2020. Photo by Tom Grotta

No time for complacency.

For Volume 50: Chronicling Fiber Art for Three Decades Bartlett created Meeting Point. “Ideas for this piece were set in motion while walking and conversing on a coastal trail in the bright light of a sharp but sunny winter day,” she says. “I started to think about the rhythm of the walk and making a work in which two pieces were in conversation with each other. Meeting Point embodies ideas of a place and time but also alludes to coming together across a divide where paths converge, intersect, where there is difference but also similarity. A plea for our times.”

Bartlett in her studio/home in 2018. Photo by Tom Grotta

Bartlett continues to challenge herself. “As age and experience expand, I find myself more aware of how I work,” she says. “I continue to actively need fresh challenges while knowing  and recognizing limitations of self and the art world in general. Again the push/ pull. No room for complacency.”