Hannah Waldron is a British artist (b. 1984, London) who creates textile-led installations, working predominantly with plant-based materials.
In 2014, she earned her MFA from Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. Deeply influenced by the Swedish philosophy of craft, she is currently based in her Cornwall studio, where she continues to explore and develop her unique approach to tapestry.
Her work has been recognized with several international weaving awards, including The Hay Award (Denmark), the Hemslöjden Märta Gahn’s Award (Sweden), and The Irene Davies Award (Australia).
Beyond her studio practice, Waldron has taught contemporary tapestry workshops and courses across Sweden, the UK, Japan, and France. She also serves as a part-time Senior Lecturer on the MA Authorial Practice at Falmouth University.
Where Material and Imagination Meet
Hand-crafted textiles have a beguiling way of enchanting the artists who work with them.
At least, that has been my experience as an artist working with weaving and dyeing over the past 15 years. To work with textiles by hand, to take them from raw plant or animal fibre to the level we witness in the realm of textile art requires numerous stages of processing requiring patience, time and dedicated labour. Nowhere do we witness this more ardently than in the processes of Dye and Resist as found in the Japanese textile practices of Kasuri weaving and Tsutsugaki, which I have been so fortunate to have experienced first hand working with masters of these crafts during visits to Japan.
The painstakingly slow processes of Kasuri weaving and Tsutsugaki demand a level of commitment and devotion that is quite unfathomable at times and reveals a great deal about what we are capable of as humans engaged in tactile processes.– it’s a meeting point between material and imagination, that begins to feel like a kind of magic - through a deeper engagement with the alchemical and mathematical processes that lie within nature - and deep within ourselves.
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