Richard McVetis
- Interim Head of Programme, Textiles
- Textiles MA
Richard is a visual artist whose practice-led research explores time, geology and cosmology through hand embroidery. His intricate, shifting textile works and installations render the passage of time and human presence physically visible in stitch.
He studied at Manchester School of Art before completing an MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in 2008.
Following over a decade in retail design and strategy, he returned to the RCA as a visiting lecturer in 2017 and became a tutor in 2022. He has also taught, lectured and led workshops at institutions across the UK and internationally.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Expertise
Gallery
More information
Practice
Richard's research is practice-led and ongoing, driven by a fascination with the language of time, geology and cosmology, explored primarily through textile-based work — particularly hand embroidery. Through repetition in the making process, he investigates the nuanced space between sameness and difference, producing works that map space and visually render the passage of time, challenging traditional definitions of embroidery.
Recent projects turn to questions of material, place, and deep time, with a focus on his family's mining heritage — a lineage rooted in materiality and labour, traced through coal as it moves across geological, industrial, and familial timescales.
Awards
Cove Park Awarded Residency 2026
Bronze Award, Cheongju Craft Biennale, South Korea, 2025
A-N Award, 2025
Resident Artist, Make Hauser & Wirth, 2024
Finalist, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, 2023
Finalist, Evelyn Williams Drawing Award, 2023
Winner, Cockpit Textile Prize, 2023
Finalist, Loewe Craft Prize, 2018
Finalist, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2016
Finalist, Cheongju International Craft Competition, 2015
Finalist, Jerwood Drawing Prize, 2011
Current and recent projects
Richard's recent work turns to questions of material, place, and deep time, with a focus on his family's mining heritage — a lineage rooted in materiality and labour. Using coal as both material and metaphor, he traces its passage across stellar, geological, industrial, colonial and familial timescales, drawing out the residues left by history, labour, and migration. The work is guided by a single conceptual thread: nothing is created, only transformed.
This research is currently developing through a residency at Cove Park, alongside an ongoing relationship with the Scottish Mining Museum, and builds on earlier works including an embroidered coal seam map and Coal Seams, shown at the British Textile Biennale.
Publications, exhibitions and other outcomes
Solo exhibitions
(2022) Shaped by Time. Crafts Study Centre. Farnham. UK
Selected group exhibitions
(2026) The Sun and the Moon. Saatchi Gallery. London.
(2026) A Moment for Eternity. Hauser & Wirth. London.
(2025) Cheongju Craft Biennale. South Korea.
(2024) Objects of Contemplation. Make Hauser & With. London.
(2024) On Tenderness & Time, David Katz Gallery. London.
(2024)Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize. Bournemouth, Plymouth, and Wigan.UK.
(2023) Threads: ‘Breathing Stories in Materials’. Arnolfini. Bristol. UK
(2023) House Guests. David Parr House. Cambridge. UK
(2023) Into the Night. Cavaliero Finn Gallery. London Art Fair.
(2022) Sixty Drawings + Ten. The Whitaker. Manchester. UK.
(2021) Definitions of Drawing. Sunny Bank Mills. Leeds. UK
(2021) Connected Cloth. The British Textile Biennial. The Whitaker. UK
(2021) Monochrome. Ruthin Craft Centre. Wales. UK.
(2020) Of Time and Place. Living Object. London.
(2019) RE-NEW. Kettles Yard. Cambridge. UK.
(2019) David Gates: In Dialogue - Make Hauser & Wirth. Somerset. UK.
(2019) Crafting New Perspectives. Culturesphere. Gmund Büttenpapierfabrik. Germany.
(2018) Loewe Craft Prize. The Design Museum. London.
(2017) Craft Forms. Wayne Art Centre. USA.
(2017) Make_Shift - Collyer Bristow Gallery - London, UK.
(2017) Form + Motion. UK Pavilion - British Council & Crafts Council. Cheongju International Craft Biennale. South Korea.
(2017) Real to Reel: The Craft Film Festival - Crafts Council - Picture House Central - London, UK.
(2017) Collect Open. Saatchi Gallery. London. UK.
(2016) Jerwood Drawing Prize. Jerwood Space. London.
Talks and interviews
(2026) Ruskin Prize Symposium: Patience in Looking, Truth in Making. London.
(2025) Mapping Heat: Textiles, Coal and Time — PARSE Conference, University of Gothenburg. Sweden.
(2025) Loewe Foundation. Artist talk and panel discussion. Somerset House. London.
(2023) Textile + Place Conference - Talk and panel discussion. Manchester Metropolitan University. UK.
(2023) Unravelling Threads. Panel discussion with curators Gemma Brace & Alice Kettle. Arnolfini. Bristol.
(2023) Sew Inclusive: Male & Non Binary Artists in Conversation. Woven Textile Festival. Huddersfield. UK.
(2023) Radical Acts Symposium. Panel discussion with Natalie Melton. Harewood House. Leeds. UK.
(2022) Material Lives. Artefact. Panel discussion with Grant Gibson. London.
(2022) Material Matters. Podcast with Grant Gibson.
(2021) Definitions of Drawing. Panel discussion with curator Courtney Spencer. Leeds. UK.
(2021) Pursuit of Beauty. Presented by Amber Butchart. BBC Radio 4.
(2021) The Potential of Stitch. The Textile Society.
(2021) The Skill of Narrative & Stitched Textiles. Fashion & Textiles Museum. London.