Barbara Hepworth was a particular inspiration for me throughout my final year at Uni, with her abstract sculptural forms inspiring many of the textures within and concepts behind my graduate knitwear collection. Hepworth felt a strong connection to the landscape and her sculptures often suggested the relationship between one living thing and another, or a ‘gesture in the landscape’ as she herself described. In an interview clip, she describes her own experiences in connection to the landscape: “[the] sensation of moving physically, over the contours of the fulnesses and the concavities, through hollows and over peaks. Feeling, touching, seeing through mind and hand and eye” [The Art of Barbara Hepworth, Illuminations Press DVD]. Hepworth’s reflections inspired me to draw on my own experiences of growing up in the far West of Cornwall, to explore the organic juxtaposition of the land and sea, and to capture the relationship between body, land and sea in my own, personal way.
My graduate collection in 2018 was tactile and sensory, exhibiting a diverse range of techniques and enabling me to be hands-on and textile-orientated in my approach to knitwear design. From hand knitting chunky bobbles and leaving strands of yarn hanging from the fabric, to digitally knitting observational sketches inspired by Hepworth’s sculptures, the garments were inspired by bodily interactions and integrations with the jagged Cornish landscape, developing knitwear that was responsive, tactile and non-confined.
You can find more images of my graduate collection HERE.