Evolver 144

19 Alice Kettle Alice Kettle is a supreme colourist employing huge swathes of vibrant colour in her frequently large works. Her passion for and understanding of colour goes back to her days at Reading University studying painting where, amongst the visiting tutors, were Bert Irvin and Terry Frost. Kettle’s medium is stitch, and in her long career she has consistently challenged the art world’s prejudices against textiles and fi bre art. She has proved, through her own practice, and through her collaborations with other people, that working with stitch is not to be underestimated. She has subversively broken the glass ceiling that separates craft from art. Kettle’s work has not always been large. In her fi rst year at Reading, in the vanguard of abstract expressionism, students were encouraged to make huge gestural marks. But for her that didn’t feel quite right, she sensed that she didn’t want to be only a painter. She took a year out following a traumatic family tragedy and on her return started working small and fi guratively, later turning to textiles. The fi gures have stayed with her but she has returned to the monumental size. Working in stitch using sewing machines, taking tiny steps in thread, it seems impossible that the resulting works are so large and so free. She works blind, and upside down, stitching on the back of the fabric, checking as she goes to see how it is looking. It is a leap of faith. She will ruthlessly cut away sections that she is not happy with and collage new pieces of fabric in their place. Light is crucial and changing the direction of the stitched line changes the hue as the light catches the texture of the thread. “It is all about the quality of line, the speed, the relationship of the top and bottom thread.” She often uses different thicknesses of thread in the needle and bobbin. The movement of the fabric at different speeds under the needle, which she describes as being “like a fi xed pencil”, creates different densities of colour. She has around fi ve different machines and she moves from older analogue sewing machines to the most advanced digital technology. And she sits and sews with a needle and thread. One of the most profound in fl uences on Alice Kettle’s life was her mother, who challenged the norms of what women were supposed to do and be in the mid 20th century. She was a deeply cultured woman who revelled in colour, painting and wallpapering the walls of their house in vibrant oranges, making clothes for her children and taking them to museums and art galleries. A visit to a Barbara Hepworth exhibition in Winchester still stays with Kettle and continues to affect her personal aesthetic. There is a canon associated with embroidery, tapestry, and ecclesiastical hangings, but it is not weighed down by art history. Stitch is a universal medium and has a universal language, like music and dance, which is not dependent on speech. Narrative is a particularly important aspect of Alice’s work. She has always looked at myths and fairy tales to feed her interest in story telling and more recent work has dipped into contemporary events. She believes passionately in “changing the narrative through thread”. She has worked extensively with refugees and marginalised groups, drawing out their stories and helping them to come to terms with their traumas and tragedies. She sees stitch as a way for people to grow and repair and express themselves. She is fascinated in the dynamic that emerges when people work together. There is often a tension, “its messy but out of that mess comes a new version of something”. Fiona Robinson ‘SOFT POWER’ Until 10 August RWA, Queen’s Road, Clifton, BRISTOL, BS8 1PX. Tuesday - Sunday 10am - 5pm. £9.90 / £5.45. 0117 973 5129 / rwa.org.uk . Photograph by Jesse Wild ALICE KETTLE with ‘KINGMAKERS’ (Thread on linen, 170 x 135 cm, 2025)