Claire-Anne O'Brien

Claire-Anne O'Brien is a textile artist who lives and works in London producing textile furniture, space and product. She specialises in constructed textiles, she investigates construction, form and scale through textiles.  

Originally from co.cork in Ireland, Claire graduated from The Royal college of Art in 2010 with an MA in Constructed Textiles and set up her studio just after. 

 I really like the work of Claire as they are so different and unique. I like the fact that she thinks about the wool she uses to make these pieces, they are made from bespoke British wool, especially made by Laxtons Mill in Leeds, which is one of the oldest surviving spinners in the country. 

This is a project that Claire did called 'British Wool Chair' it was commissioned by Rowan Yarns for British Wool Week Oct. 2010 and it was exhibited in Liberties window.



http://www.claireanneobrien.com/home

Timorous Beasties

For my current project at university I've been looking into insect and in particular bee's. On a recent visit to Liberty of London I came across a cushion with a bee on: 

After seeing these I realised it was a Timorous Beasties piece so I thought I would look more into the work of Timorous Beasties. 

Timorous Beasties was established in Glasgow in 1990 by Alister McCauley and Paul Simmons, who met studying Textiles Design at Glasgow school of art . Today the studio is a diverse operation and has emerged as a multi award winning, internationally acclaimed icon. 

Timorous Beasties’ work embodies a unique diversity of pattern, ranging from design that echoes a golden age of copperplate engraving (a time-honoured classic is the Thistle range; or Merian Palm superwide wallpaper) to example of a distinctly edgy nature, an elegant transgression, a display of chic irreverence. Yet, the studio fully engages a design discourse with textiles history by lending an aesthetic evolution to time-honoured motifs. 

I really like their work as its so different and unique to them. I like their use of pattern as a background then an image on top of that.                                     

I also like that most of their work involves a lot of bright colours and busy patterns as this makes them really different as almost with their work if it clashes it goes.

                                          

http://www.timorousbeasties.com/about