“I learned to listen to threads and to speak their language.”
- Anni Albers
The most ubiquitous fibre in nature is cellulose, the primary component of all plant cell walls and the most abundant organic polymer on Earth. It is also a crucial, essential material for fabrication in every culture, invested with centuries of codified meaning. Artists like Sheila Hicks and Olga de Amaral draw influence from the textiles and ancient techniques in South America. They build on this legacy whilst experimenting with colour, materiality and pattern. As Anni Albers suggests, “Being creative is not so much the desire to do something, as the listening to that which wants to be done: the dictation of the materials.”
Paul Smith seeks to utilise materials in imaginative ways; often, this permits the company to incorporate new methods of production and create iconic new designs. For this exhibition, we have selected artists who share this spirit of reinvention, and challenge conventions in material, process, and form. Through experimentation and play, they weave, stitch, fold and thread through these conventions to find new modes of representation. This process permits the artists to demonstrate how materials used in the growing category of “fibre art” can restore meaning to our relationship with the natural world.
Our group exhibition, “A Stitch in Time”, brings together works by a new generation of artists working in the genre of fibre art today. These artists seek to defy classification and challenge artistic
hierarchies. Some embrace specific techniques and heritages to incorporate layers of meaning into their work, whilst others push the boundaries of traditions and perceptions of the medium. By elevating embroidery and sewing craft techniques, they transform ready-made and secondhand fabrics into powerful reflections on identity and social issues. In showcasing works by artists from diverse backgrounds, Paul Smith Space seeks to demonstrate a commitment to supporting artists who challenge conventions, honour heritage, and offer new perspectives on the world around us.
Image detail: Fred Coppin, Mougins
ARTISTS
Alice Kettle
Alice von Maltzahn
Ben Sanderson
Carolina Mazzolari
Cecilia Charlton
Heather Chontos
Jane Bustin
Kimathi Mafafo
Laetitzia Campbell
Ptolemy Mann
Shelly Goldsmith
Tiffanie Delune
Alice Kettle
Biography Kettle’s work is included in many international public collections including the Crafts Council, the Whitworth Manchester, Liverpool International Slavery Museum, Museum of Decorative Art and Design, Riga, Latvia, Ararat Art Gallery Australia, the Belger Collection, Kansas City USA. She is professor of Textile Arts at Manchester School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University and has co-authored and edited various publications including Machine Stitch Perspectives, Hand Stitch Perspectives, Collaboration through Craft, and The Erotic Cloth, Reading the Thread: Cloth and Communication with Bloomsbury.
Statement : Alice Kettle is an internationally renowned artist and leader in the field of textile arts. Her unique practice results in figurative stitched works from the small to the monumental. She makes full use of the textures and effects made possible through her harnessing of a mechanical process; created both through planning and intuition where stories collide with autobiographical and contemporary events, folklore and mythology.
“When stitching you are always doing two things at the same time. You are drawing a descriptive, linear, illustrative line, but it is also a threedimensional thread in tension and joins things together. The surface changes constantly under different lights. It is full of surprises all the time.”
- Alice Kettle
Image courtesy of Bo Lee Gallery.
Photograph by Dave Watts
Elizabeth 2022
Thread on linen
174 x 129 cm
£21,850 inc VAT
Green, Gold and Black 2024
Thread on linen
127 x 88 cm
£15,600 inc
Dark Gold 2024
Thread on linen
103 x 112 cm
£15,600 inc VAT
Light 2021
Signed Recto, thread on linen
34 x 36 cm (F: 52 x 55 cm)
£4,200 inc VAT
Alice von Maltzahn
Biography Alice von Maltzahn (b.1983) lives and works in London, UK. She studied at The Ruskin School of Drawing, Oxford University and Wimbledon College of Art. Solo exhibitions include: Illuminative Fields, Installation for Hermés Paris & Le Monde d’Hermés, The Magazine, Serpentine Gallery, London 2022 | Temporal City, Clerkenwell Gallery, London 2017 | Build, Wendt+Friedman Gallery, Berlin 2011 |
Selected group exhibitions include: Echo Soho, Sarabande, London 2025 | Paper, Tristan Hoare Gallery, London 2023 | Served, Sarabande Summer Show, London 2021 | Folds, Tristan Hoare Gallery, London 2021 | From This Place We Root, Proposition Studios, London 2020 | Adventures and Curiosities, Elephant Family, Hauser and Wirth, London 2018 | Box Ladder, Modern Art Oxford 2008.
Statement Alice von Maltzahn’s work looks closely at our natural environment, while exploring themes of mapping, time and memory. Shapes shift and evolve - one recognisable form gives way to anotherbecoming interwoven and layered, resisting fixed readings. Time and process are made tangible through the careful detail and construction of each piece. Densely layered paper works form sculptural planes that seek to re-animate the material. These thread works suggest the patterns found in tree bark while also feeling cartographic, as lines and channels of stitching form pathways across the surface. Visually the rhythm is fast and slow - single lines give way to large areas of densely stitched thread - leading and disrupting the eye. Just as the cambial layer of a tree generates new cells for growth and helps with repair, so here the layering up and stitching together of paper is an act of repair and renewal.
These thread works suggest the patterns found in tree bark while also feeling cartographic, as lines and channels of stitching form pathways across the surface. Visually the rhythm is fast and slow - single lines give way to large areas of densely stitched threadleading and disrupting the eye. Just as the cambial layer of a tree generates new cells for growth and helps with repair, so here the layering up and stitching together of paper is an act of repair and renewal.
Photograph by Nicola Bensley
VAT
Untitled I 2024/2025
Gampi Paper, Mull, Embroidery Thread 117 x 45cm
£18,600 inc
Untitled II 2024/2025
Gampi Paper, Mull, Embroidery Thread 117 x 45cm
£18,600 inc VAT
Untitled III 2024/2025
inc VAT
Gampi Paper, Mull, Embroidery Thread 117 x 45cm
£18,600
Untitled IV 2025/2026
182
£30,000 inc VAT
Gampi Paper, Mull, Embroidery Thread
x 90cm
Ben Sanderson
Biography Ben Sanderson (b.1986) holds a BA from Falmouth University, and in 2017 took part in Syllabus III, a roaming study programme partnered with Wysing Arts Centre, Studio Voltaire, Eastside Projects, Iniva, New Contemporaries, S1 Artspace and Spike Island. Sanderson has had a studio at CAST (Helston) since 2013 and has been closely involved with the development of the organisation from the start, as well as contributing to CAST’s ongoing programme of public events. Selected exhibitions include: Lilies and Illusions, Harbour House, Kingsbridge, (2025); The Future is Today, Mead Gallery, Coventry (2025); Ouroboros, MIRROR, Plymouth (2024); Exeter Contemporary Open, Exeter Phoenix, Exeter (2023); Thanks For the Apples, Falmouth art Gallery, Cornwall (2022); Your Foot in My Face, Kingsgate Project Space, London (2021); Green at an Angle, Kestle Barton, Cornwall (2021); Chicken Nuggets, Pool School Gallery, Cornwall, (2019); Can We Still Be Friends?, Guest Projects, London (2018); What is this place’, Newlyn Art gallery and the Exchange (2017) and Smile orange, Cubitt Gallery, London (2016).
Statement Working across painting, drawing, printmaking, paper making and textiles, my practice develops slowly, embracing cyclical processes of growth and decay. I often transform or recycle existing works treating the archive as an open space that can be reshaped and reimagined through making.
Over the past eight years, my work has extended into schools, universities, gardens, care homes, galleries, museums, shops, and domestic spaces - anywhere that allows ideas to progress. I am interested in how art can act as a tool or navigator for experiencing life, and how shared engagement with practice can create spaces for growth and understanding.
This series of works were made in 2021 and have recently been adapted for the Paul Smith Space. They were originally made for the exhibition Thanks for the Apples at Falmouth Art. Artists were asked to respond to any item they found intriguing in any of the partnering museum’s collections. I was drawn to a tiny calendar that sat within a clock that sat within the pocket of a herbalist. Time loops uncontrollably in these works while formality and stitching holds them together.
This series of works were made in 2021 and have recently been adapted for the Paul Smith Space. They were originally made for the exhibition Thanks for the Apples at Falmouth Art. Artists were asked to respond to any item they found intriguing in any of the partnering museum’s collections. I was drawn to a tiny calendar that sat within a clock that sat within the pocket of a herbalist. Time loops uncontrollably in these works while formality and stitching holds them together.
Photograph by Lucy Laucht
Garden 2021
Ink, pigment, watercolour, monotype, charcoal, oil and thread on canvas
120 x 180 cm
£9,360 inc VAT
175
£11,700 inc VAT
Ode to a Wild Flower 2021
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, charcoal and oil on canvas
x 205 cm
Almanac 2021 Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, charcoal and oil on canvas
175 x 205 cm
£11,700 inc VAT
Ripple 2021
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, charcoal and oil on canvas
175 x 205 cm
175 x 205 cm
£11,700 inc VAT
Canopy 2021
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, charcoal and oil on canvas
Planted a thought 2026
63 x 104 cm
£5,160 inc VAT
Ink, watercolour, pigment, dye, lino, etching rags, oil and thread on canvas
Outside 2026
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, oil and thread on canvas
36 x 39 cm
£2,610 inc VAT
Cornflower 2026
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, oil and thread on canvas
50 x 60 cm
£3,420 inc VAT
On Reading 2026
37 x 49 cm
£3,000 inc VAT
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, dye, oil and thread on canvas
Two Windows 2026
46 x 37 cm
£3,000 inc VAT
Ink, watercolour, acrylic, monotype, dye, oil and thread on canvas
First Light 2025
£2,160 inc VAT
Watercolour, oil and thread on canvas 24 x 34 cm
Awakening 2026
Ink, watercolour, oil and thread on canvas
35 x 50 cm
£3,000 inc VAT
Carolina Mazzolari
Biography Carolina Maria Mazzolari
(b. 1981, Milan, Italy) is a London-based multidisciplinary artist working across textile, sculpture, photography, film, and performance. Her practice explores psychological states through abstraction, drawing on psychoanalysis, field theory, and biomimetic forms to construct what she describes as “emotional architectures” and “inner landscapes.” Mazzolari studied Fashion Design at Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (NABA) (1999–2001) and Textile Design at Chelsea College of Art (2001–2004). She has been based in London since 2014. Her practice merges ancient craft with contemporary sculptural language, frequently developed through long, collaborative processes.
Statement ‘When I began developing this idea through my tapestries, I wanted to create maps — a coded kind of alphabet. Nothing overly complicated, but a system in which each colour, shape, perspective, section, and movement within the drawing would retain its own symbolism, repeatedly carrying a distinct characteristic. It feels like an attempt to visualise the cladding of invisible states. It has been a wonderful journey so far, because it allows me to construct something internally — almost like a visual evasion — imagining how it might look if we could truly map expressions and feelings, if we could create topologies of emotional states, an architecture between frequencies.’
‘...imagining how it might look if we could truly map expressions and feelings, if we could create topologies of emotional states, an architecture between frequencies.’
Image courtesy of the artist
LINE-EYE 2026
200 x 100 x 10 cm
£18,000 inc VAT
Hand-woven raw fleece wool, cotton thread and foam
Hand Stitched cotton on Linen
145 x 85 x 3 cm per panel, (Framed Diptych 164 x 103 cm)
£29,000 inc VAT
Ulsse-Nausicaä 2026
Suns 2023
85
£5,000 inc VAT
Ink and hand embroidery in cotton thread on linen, oak frame
x 75 x 4 cm
Suns I 2023
Ink and hand embroidery in cotton thread on linen, oak frame
Biography Cecilia Charlton is a SGSAHAHRC funded PhD researcher at the Glasgow School of Art. She has exhibited in the UK and internationally; recent exhibitions include: Pattern Cutters, Ragged School Museum, London UK, 2025; Colours Uncovered, Harewood House, Leeds UK, 2024; Memory Garden, Garden Museum, London UK, 2023 (solo); Syzygy, Candida Stevens Gallery, 2023 (solo); Mammoth Loop, SPACE Ilford, 2021 (solo); SURGE: The Eastwing Biennial, Courtauld Institute, London, 2018; Rogue Objects, University College London, London, 2018. Awards include Arts Council England Project Grant (2024), Lithuanian Cultural Council Mobility Grant (2025), the Brookfield Properties Craft Award (shortlisted, 2022), Jerwood Makers Open Award (2021), Fulbright UK Scholarship (shortlisted, 2015), and the Ellen Battel Stockel Fellowship as part of the Yale University Norfolk Residency (2014). Her work is held in the public collections of the National Museum of Lithuania, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Foundation, London School of Economics, and NHS/ Bart’s Trust as well as private collections. Her work has been featured in notable publications such as the Wall Street Journal, El Pais, Crafts Magazine,
The Times, The Guardian, Vogue UK, the Financial Times, as well as in the recentlypublished book ‘Textile Fine Art’ by Helen Adams.
Statement Cecilia Charlton is a Glasgowbased American artist and researcher working primarily with the processes of weaving, embroidery, spinning, and natural dyeing. Holding a BFA Painting from Hunter College in NYC (2015) and an MA Painting from the Royal College of Art (2018), she utilises historicallygrounded textile techniques to pursue interests in geometry, colour and the role of the subconscious. Themes of feminism, human history, time and transcendence are inherently part of the hand-made work, and Charlton’s investigation into the history of textiles from creative, cultural, and socioeconomic perspectives underpins her studio practice. Spanning the mediums of textiles, installation, and art in the social sphere, the work results in conversation tending towards both the personal and the universal. Recent works meditate on the intersection of traditional craft practices, ecological systems, and sociopolitical events towards a deeper understanding of intercultural and environmental relationships.
‘..working primarily with the processes of weaving, embroidery, spinning, and natural dyeing.’
Photograph by Andy Fallon
Border fragment [blue-grey-red on blue] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [grey-teal-maroon on navy] 2021
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Border fragment [rust-green-blue on blue] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border Fragment [olive-red-blue on green] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [purple-orange-yellow on green] 2021
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Border fragment [purple-teal green on green] 2021
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Border fragment [blue-teal-brown on peach] 2021
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [red-teal-green on pink] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [green-green-rust on pink] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [peach-teal-purple on pink] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
Border fragment [taupe-yellow-green on pink] 2021
15 x 15 cm
£360 inc VAT
Hand-embroidered wool thread and acrylic paint on canvas over gilded panel
£2,400 inc VAT
Punchcard - Patchwork [green] 2022
Hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas 45 x 38 cm
£2,400 inc VAT
Punchcard - Patchwork [teal] 2022
Hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas 45 x 38 cm
£2,400 inc VAT
Punchcard - Patchwork [pink] 2022
Hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas 45 x 38 cm
Punchcard - Patchwork [red] 2022
Hand-embroidered wool yarn and acrylic paint on canvas 45 x 38 cm
£2,400 inc VAT
The flower of what’s true [blue] 2024
Hand-embroidered wool yarn on cotton canvas over cedar panel, 24-carat gold leaf
40 x 40 cm
£1,920 inc VAT
The flower of what’s true [red] 2024
Hand-embroidered wool yarn on cotton canvas over cedar panel, 24-carat gold leaf
40 x 40 cm
£1,920 inc VAT
Heather Chontos
Biography ‘As a painter, I work impulsively, harnessing the power of gestures to create instinctive compositions that combine bold colours, dynamic marks and organic forms.’
Born in New York in 1978, Chontos is the daughter of an antique collector and carpenter. From an early age, she was fascinated with the meaning of objects and forms. Whether by restoration or construction, she began to understand the value of working with her hands. These early influences ultimately became a major driving force behind her academic and professional focus, studying art conservation and gaining experience in illustration, set design, prop making and product styling. The past and present play a vital role in Chontos’ work, holding equal significance as she creates. Moreover, her entire artistic approach is holistic, driven by the motivation to reflect her personal experience both internally and of the world around her. Her completed paintings present puzzle-like collages, varying in texture, weight, and tension. Together, organic shapes and lines coalesce in relation to each other, and dance together in asymmetrical harmony. Each
canvas invites the viewer to investigate the composition and to find their own narrative connections as they survey.
As an artist, Chontos’ work has taken her all over the world, from her first solo show in the UK, to Barcelona, Copenhagen, Berlin, New York, Los Angeles and Italy, where she was the artist-in-residence at Palazzo Monti. Most recently, her journey has taken her to Marvão, Portugal where she currently lives and works.
Statement We are fortunate to have this land, to have the quiet peace of this place, to wake to the natural world and only tend to what the Earth and its creatures requires, there is no hiding from this land and what it needs, tending to the soil, to what grows and flourishes and to what dies and decays, there is a process, a quiet observance that living with the land requires of you. In this I find purpose and rhythm to source my inspiration to create this work, to carefully stitch together found fabrics and wood, to tell a story of what I find beautiful here on this land.
These works were made to share the essence of the key moments of my observance of the way the land changes, watching it change, adjusting its beauty to the conditions the Earth presents. As I live mostly outdoors, I find comfort in knowing my surroundings well and the stories it shares with me.
Image courtesy of Finch Projects
Shadowplay 2025
Acrylic, Ink and oil stock on stitched antique linen
143.6 x 117 cm
£13,200 inc VAT
Unearthed 2025
Oil, acrylic and oil stick on Portugese antique woven, linen flour stack
96.5 x 103 cm
£8,400 inc VAT
Nothing but the Sky 2025
Acrylic, Ink and oil stock on Portugese antique woven, hand stitched flour stacks
170 x 120 cm
£16,800 inc VAT
Dry Earth 2025
Acrylic, ink, oil and oil stick on hand stitched antique linen and silk 142 x 116 cm
£13,200 inc VAT
Sunlight 2024
Acrylic, oil, oil stick and ink on cotton canvas
140.5 x 220.6 cm
£20,400 inc VAT
Jane Bustin
Biography Jane Bustin, born 1964, lives and works in London, her practice spans three decades of works in painting and ceramic as well as installation, text, film and performance. Her paintings are made as sequential, monochrome abstract works, executed in a variety of mediums and surfaces including copper, aluminium, wood, ceramic, acrylic, and textile.
Bustin’s work has been exhibited widely nationally including Rothko museum Latvia, Kettles Yard Cambridge, Southampton Gallery, Ferens Museum Hull, Camden Arts Centre London, Whitechapel Gallery London, Walker Gallery Manchester, Jerwood space London, Drawing Room London, Mostyn Gallery Llandudno, Djanogly Gallery Nottingham and internationally with solo shows in Berlin, Latvia, London, New York, Paris, Sydney and Auckland. Bustin has work in public collections, including: The Rothko Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Ferens Museum and Yale Centre. She is represented by Copperfield, London, Jane Lombard New York and Fox Jensen Sydney and FoxJensen McCory Auckland.
Statement Jane Bustin’s most recent work has used erotic and soft porn images of women primarily from the 1970’s calendars ( Pirelli 1972 ) and postcard lenticulars to reframe the way in which the viewer has become immune to the sexual voyeurism when looking at naked women both in our national galleries or media devices. Bustin uses the aesthetic disciplines found in formal abstraction to both push and pull the viewer’s attention. They explore the metaphysical potential for painting to ‘make visual’ philosophical concepts found primarily in modernist literature, feminism, theology as well as music and dance.
They explore the metaphysical potential for painting to ‘make visual’ philosophical concepts found primarily in modernist literature, feminism, theology as well as music and dance.
Acrylic, linen, wood (diptych), 20 x 30 cm £4,800 inc VAT
Kimathi Mafafo
Biography Kimathi Mafafo (b. 1984) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges from embroidery and oil painting to installation. Mafafo obtained a National Diploma in Fine Arts from the College of Cape Town in 2007 and a National Diploma in Film and Video from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2016. Born in the semi-arid Kimberley in the Northern Cape of South Africa, Mafafo questions historical stereotypes around gender inequality in Africa. She primarily focuses on celebrating the black female and depicting abstracted forms typically surrounded by verdant imagery, characterised by lush greenery and sensuous drapery that are far removed from the dusty mining town where she grew up. She has recently organized a group of Capetonian woman into an informal traditional embroidery society.
Statement In the work of South African artist Kimathi Mafafo nature is explored not just as a physical space, but as a state of being which is associated with feminine energies, creativity, self-expression, commune and motherhood.
Mafafo presents a series of abstract landscapes that evoke the emotional experience of being in nature, while also subtly confronting the environmental damage wrought by human activity. These pockets of wilderness, untouched and flourishing without human presence, serve as both a refuge and a reminder. They offer viewers a sense of escape into pristine, untouched worlds while underscoring the fragility and resilience of the natural world. We are variously transported into a forest-like setting, rich with textures, earthy tones and touches of luminescence; into scrubby lands covered in fluffy moss-like forms; and into the arid landscapes of the Northern Cape, Mafafo’s birthplace, where after heavy rainfall, the red earth is blanketed with vivid purple, red and yellow flowers.
They offer viewers a sense of escape into pristine, untouched worlds while underscoring the fragility and resilience of the natural world.
Image courtesy of Kristin Hjellegjerde
I 2025
£12,000 inc VAT
Dance
Hand and Machine Embroidered Fabric
94 x 130 cm
£12,000 inc VAT
Dance II 2025
Hand and Machine Embroidered Fabric
91 x 130 cm
Laetitzia Campbell
Biography (b. 1996, Paris) recently left her Paris based career in the high-end fashion world to devote herself solely to her textile-based art practice, in London. Having pursued embroidery development at major fashion houses, including Saint Laurent and Hermès, Campbell, who has a BA in Fine Art and an MA in Fashion from Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, now uses her technical repertoire exclusively in her own delicate and highly evocative work exploring questions of memory and home. Campbell, who is French-British and of Jamaican heritage, uses the sewing machine as a drawing tool to create images that float in spaces of ambiguity, between the past and present, figuration and abstraction, alienation and belonging. Exhibitions include, On your way home, Ed Cross Fine Art, London, 2025; Platform, curated by Ferren Gipson, Ed Cross Fine Art at London Art Fair, 2026; On your way home, what did you find?, David Parr House, Cambridge, 2026. Laetitzia Campbell’s work is in various major private collections including Michael Rosenfeld, Robert Devereux and Olufemi
Akinsanya
Statement Fleeting moments of calm A reflection on those quiet instances that linger in the memory. The warmth of the sun on your face, the taste of coffee by a familiar window, the sweetness of a melon in the summer. This body of work captures the beauty in the ordinary, inviting the viewer to savour the subtle joys that slip through time.
Through the common ritual of the picnic, Campbell brings us back to memories of warmer, gentler times; be it the warmth of the sun, or the one created by a shared gaze. It is that moment where conversations fade from memory, yet the feeling remains: the haze of voices and sounds, the detail of a napkin, the scent of cut fruit, and a quiet sense of a shared escape.
Do you dare remember, The sweet taste of summer? Between the stripes, feet in the grass, You fall asleep, At last. Wrapped in loud whispers, Warmth on your neck, A warmth that lingers. Forgetting, For an instant, That this moment will pass, Oh, the sweet taste of summer.
Image courtesy of Ed Cross Fine Art.
Photograph by Rocio Chacon
The Last Gaze 2025
Polyester and cotton thread on cotton 65 x 60 cm £3,600 inc VAT
The Last Gaze II 2026
Polyester and cotton thread on cotton 64 x 54.5 cm £3,600 inc VAT
Sleeping man by the window 2025
Polyester and cotton thread on cotton 51 x 36 cm
£2,100 inc VAT
The
Sweet Taste of Summer 2025
Polyester and cotton thread on cotton 75 x 95 cm £4,800 inc VAT
While the light lasted 2026
Polyester and cotton thread on cotton 150 x 200 cm £11,400 inc VAT
Within the haze 2026
Cotton thread on cotton 34 x 44 cm £1,800 inc VAT
Ptolemy Mann
Biography Ptolemy Mann established her studio after graduating from Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art in 1997. Her unique approach to hand-dyeing and weaving wall-based artworks has evolved over a twenty-five-year period. She dyes the long skeins of thread and then weaves them on a loom, embedding colour into the cloth itself. Exquisite dynamics of colour move across their fine surface, creating a painterly sweep. Mann makes large-scale pieces that demonstrate a deep understanding of craftsmanship and precision through an abstract narrative. The term ‘chromatic minimalism’ has been applied to her work, and abstract expressionism and architecture are crucial influences.
In recent years, Mann has been making huge gestural paintings on watercolour paper and canvas exploring the connections between thread and pigment. Mann is interested in the relationships between colours and their affective potential. For her, painting is an expression of the material and emotional worlds. In 2021 Mann made the bold decision to combine her weaving and painting practices in the Thread Paintings, applying spontaneous brushstrokes of acrylic paint directly onto a carefully hand-woven surface. Optical effects and natural phenomena
inspire her to explore the possibilities of her chosen materials: dye, thread, paper and paint. Through their rapid and/or laborious application, she creates a multi-layered meditation on light and colour.
In 2019 Mann was commissioned by the Tate Modern Gallery in London to create a site-specific woven triptych called Circadian Rhythm. In addition, she has completed many site-specific art installations and has exhibited worldwide. She lectures regularly throughout the UK and abroad, writes for the magazine Selvedge.
Statement These new woven works were created as part of an ongoing series to mark the winter solstice but also explore notions of lightness and darkness in a broader sense; something I’ve been interested in for a long time. The ikat technique echo’s the ephemeral qualities of a night sky or the Aurora Borealis, the graduation of darkness through to light. The contrasting blocks and grids are created with a supplementary warp technique and bring an architectural sense of order and resolution which could be interpreted as our human desire to impose control over nature. Rural versus urban; night versus day; ethereal versus geometric.
The ikat technique echo’s the ephemeral qualities of a night sky or the Aurora Borealis, the graduation of darkness through to light.
Image courtesy of Tristan Hoare Gallery.
Photograph by
Circe Hamilton
£4,800 inc VAT
Solstice (Ikat) 2026
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
40 x 40 cm
40 x 40 cm
£5,400 inc VAT
Solstice (Ephemeral) 2026
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
Solstice (Winter Bloom) 2026
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
40 x 40 cm
£4,800 inc VAT
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
60 x 60 cm
Edition of 50
£8,400 inc VAT
Solstice (Nordic) 2026
£8,400 inc VAT
Solstice (Golden) 2026
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
60 x 60 cm
Solstice (Blue Dawn) 2026
Hand dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
60 x 75 cm
£9,000 inc VAT
dyed and woven viscose and mercerised cotton
120 x 150 cm
£21,600 inc VAT
Solstice (Dawn + Indigo Night) 2026
Hand
Shelly Goldsmith
Biography Shelly Goldsmith, a Royal College of Art alumna and award-winning artist has exhibited in galleries and museums in the UK, Europe, USA and Japan. Her work is in many notable public collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London and The Whitworth, Manchester.
Recent exhibitions include Soft Power: lives told through textile art at the Royal West of England Academy, Connective Material at Museum Dr Guislain, Ghent, Belgium, and FA International at the Museum of Art, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Goldsmith is the recipient of the prestigious Jerwood Prize and in 2020 was awarded the Vlieseline Fine Art Textile Prize, an international prize which recognises concept driven and gallery context textiles. In 2024 she was shortlisted for the international Kate Derum Award, Australia. Goldsmith’s work is written about and cited extensively in books and journals.
Goldsmith’s Creative practice is underpinned by collaborations with Psychiatry and Forensic Science professionals and supported by awards from Arts Council England and the Wellcome Trust. In 2025 she
received a Bursary from Axis Contemporary Art and an Award from the Theo Moorman Trust.
Shelly is Emeritus Reader in Textiles at the University for the Creative Arts. She lives and works in the coastal town of Ramsgate, Kent, England.
Statement I make textile-based work that explores how we become who we are — physically, psychologically, emotionally. I draw on my working-class upbringing and a near-death experience in my teens to investigate what gives life meaning, how we hold pain, and where we find safety. Textiles are central to my process. I unpick, rework, reweave, and layer inherited family clothes — garments worn, torn, and lived in — as a way of thinking through memory, trauma, and transformation. Each thread holds a story.
In the act of weaving and stitching, I’m also reflecting, questioning, healing. I use tapestry weaving, hand and digital embroidery, and experimental printing techniques to surface these buried narratives.
Much of my recent work focuses on our relationship with our biological mothers — the bond that begins life and leaves a lasting imprint, whether tender or fractured, known or absent.
Image courtesy of the artist
Swaddled by the sea 2022
Hand dye sublimation on reclaimed fabric with digitally woven text tape and hand stitch
148 x 172 cm
£7,560 inc VAT
A Cloud is Forming 2025
Hand woven tapestry, cotton, silk, wool and reclaimed threads
96 x 176 cm
£9,720 inc VAT
Tiffanie Delune
Biography Born in Paris, France in 1988 and living now in Montpellier in the South of France, Tiffanie Delune has exhibited internationally in Europe, North America, West Africa and Asia. Her solo exhibitions include “The Geography of Feelings”, Gallery 1957, London, United Kingdom (2024), “There’s Gold on the Palms of My Hands”, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2023), “See Me Flowing”, Band of Vices, Los Angeles, United States (2022), “There’s Gasoline in My Heart”, Foreign Agent, Lausanne, Switzerland (2022) and “Seeds of Light”, Ed Cross Fine Art, London, United Kingdom (2020). She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including: “Sacred Movements”, Galerie Christophe Person, Brussels, Belgium (2025), “Alchemical Gestures”, Galerie Revel, Bordeaux, France (2025), “The Fabric of Life”, Paul Smith, London, UK (2024), “A Spirit Inside”, Compton Verney, Warwickshire, United Kingdom (2024) and The Lightbox, Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom (2023), “Touching the Sky”, Mucciaccia Contemporary, Rome, Italy (2023), “In and Out of Time”, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2023), “Unlimited”, Gallery 1957, Accra, Ghana (2022), “The Storytellers”, Gallery 1957, London , United Kingdom (2022), “Mother Nature”, The Core Club, New York, United States (2022), “Her Dark Materials”, With Eye of the Huntress, London, United Kingdom (2021) and “In the Midst of All That Is”, Band of Vices, Los Angeles, United States (2021).
Statement Expanding from an initial focus on childhood experiences, my practice is instinctively embarking on the realms of wandering and utopia. I weave apparitions in dreams and travel memories with symbols of femininity and spirituality. Exploring my inner self and the spectrum of human feelings, I am interested in the magic of storytelling that engages conversations and evokes emotions.
Approaching my work with playfulness and an intuitive curiosity, I create multilayered pieces on cotton canvas, loose linen and smaller pieces of paper; inviting for a dialogue between the scale and the subject. Letting go of any inhibitions in the choice of materials, I choose them for their textures and meaning — from acrylic, spray paint, oil pastels and papercuts to glitter and threads. In a conflicted world that feels deeply saturated, I put a special emphasis on sharing a blended narrative in all its depth and beauty.
The natural world is center stage to my creativity from constellations to the seas, ancient maps and medicinal drawings. Inspired by animism, anatomy, geometry and astrology, I imagine emotional and otherworldly landscapes that invite for introspection and reflect the richness and complexity of our psyche.
Expanding from an initial focus on childhood experiences, my practice is instinctively embarking on the realms of wandering and utopia.
Photograph by Ninon de Buyl
Cartography of the Heart V 2025
Mixed Media on Cotton 70 cm diameter £5,245
The Geography of Feelings 2024
Mixed Media on Cotton 290 x 250 cm £15,720
For all art enquiries please contact:
art@paulsmith.co.uk
Katie Heller
Art & Exhibitions Manager katie.heller@paulsmith.co.uk
Audrey Dennis
Gallery Assistant audrey.dennis@paulsmith.co.uk
Paul Smith
9 Albemarle Street
London W1S 4BL
+44 (0)7553 352 959
+44 (0) 207 493 4565
Paul Smith Space, found downstairs at 9 Albemarle Street, is a dedicated gallery presenting artwork which resonates with the company’s ethos of creativity, individuality, and curiosity. A full programme of exhibitions will see Paul Smith Space change periodically throughout the year, each time introducing an exciting new array of work.
