Rebecca Hampson
Get in Touch
Rebecca Hampson

Textiles Artist

Rebecca Hampson

My work explores the relationship between what is seen and what lies beneath. Through hand stitch, sublimation printing and cold wax, I work with layered materials to reveal, obscure and reconnect the marks created on both sides of the fabric.

The process of making creates space for the unexpected.

My practice begins with hand stitch and a curiosity about what happens beyond the visible surface of the fabric. I am particularly interested in the relationship between the front and reverse of embroidery-between the marks I have intended to make and those that emerge unseen.

Through photography, sublimation printing and layered textiles, I bring these hidden structures back to the surface, allowing different marks, images and materials to overlap and interact. The process creates new relationships between what was intended and what has emerged by chance.

With a background in Textile Design, art education and Therapeutic Arts, my practice is grounded in close observation, material exploration and an interest in what can be discovered through the process of making.

Under the surface

An ongoing body of work exploring the hidden marks created through hand stitch.

The reverse of each stitched surface is photographed, enlarged and returned to the cloth through sublimation printing. These accidental structures are layered with the original stitch, allowing front and back, intention and chance, to occupy the same surface.

Practice

My current practice explores what exists beneath the visible surface of fabric.

I work primarily with hand embroidery and am increasingly interested in both the front and reverse of stitched fabric, in particular the deliberate marks I make on the surface and the less controlled traces that emerge on the back through the process of stitching. I am curious about these hidden marks and what they reveal about the process of making.

I use my phone camera as a simple and readily available tool within this exploration. It allows me to look closely at the stitched surface as I work, isolating details and experimenting with scale, focus and viewpoint. By attaching additional lenses to my phone, I can get closer still and discover details that might otherwise be overlooked.

During this experimentation, I have sometimes captured the circular edge of the lens within the photograph. Rather than cropping this away, I am curious about what happens when the circle remains. It creates a boundary around a small area of the textile, isolating a fragment of a much larger surface and focusing attention upon it.

This connects naturally with my continuing interest in the circle as a form. I enjoy using it as a point of focus and as a way of drawing attention to something that might otherwise remain unnoticed. I am continuing to explore the possibilities of the circular lens and how it might influence the way I look at, record and develop my work.

I also photograph and enlarge details from the reverse of my embroidery and use sublimation printing to transfer these images back onto fabric. I am experimenting with superimposing these printed images onto the original stitched surface, bringing together the front and back of the work and allowing marks that would normally remain hidden to become visible.

Through this ongoing process, I am exploring ideas around trace, evidence, perception, scale, repetition and what is revealed or concealed through making. My phone camera is a useful part of this process because it is usually readily available, allowing me to record, look more closely and respond to unexpected details as they emerge.


Title Text
Title Text
Title Text
Title Text
Rebecca
Made with Pixpa