Anna Duthie

This final project explores a new definition of embellishment: a process which can both add and subtract from the surface of a fabric. 

Visual inspiration comes from a collection of photographs that display distorted linear and striped compositions, varied qualities of light, and bleached out colour. The concept of building up and taking away from fabric, alongside these photographs, led me to the themes of layering, concealing and revealing, light and shadow.

I investigated textile techniques that perform the process of addition or subtraction, most significantly devore printing. The print often becomes a structural element of the textile, and reweaving allows embroidery to be integrated into the fabric. The processes often affect the handle and properties of the textile, transforming heavy to light, opaque to translucent, stiff to fluid, strong to delicate. Contrasting gloss and matte finishes highlight these varying properties. The resulting fabrics lie somewhere between surface and structure, creating a refined and unfamiliar concept of embellishment.