Textile artist Matthew Harris lets a roll of the dice dictate his artistic choices. We spoke to Matthew about his unique creative process, the interplay between paper and textile, and the roles that improvisation and chance play in his art practice.
Have you ever looked at a piece of art and felt drawn to its story, not just by what's on the surface, but by the layers of texture, rhythm and emotion it holds? It’s almost as though the artist’s hands have woven their thoughts and feelings into every stitch, cut and mark.
Matthew Harris’ work captures this essence. His journey into textiles began 26 years ago after predominantly working with paper and drawing. An established and competent artist, Matthew’s mesmerising textile works challenge conventional boundaries and celebrate the beauty of imperfection. They blend a rich variety of influences, from music to the meditative act of constructing and deconstructing cloth.
Artistic Beginnings
During our interview Matthew reflected on his unconventional upbringing, sharing, "I grew up with four parents, who were all practicing Buddhists, which I think did have a profound effect on my way of thinking about things. My father was a woodworker and my mum showed me how to use a sewing machine.”
“I was always making things and interested in visual things. I struggled in school, but I had a good relationship with a textile tutor called Claire Boyd, who was instrumental in encouraging a level of experimentation that excited me." Matthew reflects that Claire’s restless imagination and constant ‘what if’ questions shaped his approach to making art.
“I had a clear sense that I wanted to work independently as an artist,” he explains. “I found a Goldsmith’s course, which shaped the way I look at materials.”
From Paper to Cloth
Matthew started his career making complex drawings, exploring mythology and storytelling, and he even worked in animation and design for a brief period of time.
His paper-based works began to evolve as he explored elements of patterns, repetition and mismatch. “I was interested in that and making drawings, but I happened across a piece of Moroccan henna cloth in a shop in London. This really excited me: it was a woven cloth mixture of wool and cotton that was painted with henna and embroidered. A few weeks later I came across a piece of Kuba cloth, which I had never seen before. These two things made me want to transition from drawings into fabric in some kind of way.”
Matthew’s foray into fabric started when he picked up a builder’s dust sheet and decided to translate his practices with paper into textiles.
“I had clear ideas of working with repeated shapes,” he explains. “Working in an unplanned way. I pleated the cloth to compress the layers together, cut it and fold it down. It was very exciting to find that and the materials I use haven’t changed since then.”
Matthew loves a builder’s dust sheet, saying it takes colour beautifully. “It’s dense and easy to stitch through. It stretches slightly and you can play around with it.”
Chance and Constraint
Chance plays a role in Matthew’s art practice. This is where he let’s the roll of the dice impact his artistic choices.
“I’ve been working with chance procedures in various ways for a long time. I started to throw stencils randomly across paper and then cloth. Then I started to use dice to determine how many times I would use each shape and what I would draw or paint around them with, whether I’d use a thick or a thin brush, plain line or a strike, solid or textured.”
Matthew was influenced by the works of musician and artist John Cage. “I love his music, printmaking and philosophical approach to making work. I like to be surprised, and a bit scared of what’s in front of me. I might throw the dice and get two of one shape and one of another. I end up with a lot of space, which is scary! Other times there are shapes I don’t like but I know the process will allow for all of those shapes to change. I want to feel unsettled by the process of making something.”
While he knows everything is open to change, “All the things I fear turn out alright and become interesting, or they become a line I can use elsewhere. It frees things up for me. I don’t have to make decisions. In the same way you come across things in nature, when you leave things to chance you don’t agonise over the composition, but you accept it for what it is.”
Teaching a Visual Language
Matthew has worked on a range of exciting projects and been given licence to be creative when working in situ public spaces. He also teaches art to others.
“My approach to teaching has grown out of the experience I had at Goldsmith’s, where I had to bring my own ideas to each workshop and studio,” he says.
Teaching art foundation courses, Matthew has instructed jewellers, sculptors, graphic designers and photographers. “I wanted them to work with cloth and see the potential of it to do different things. I became very conscious that I wanted to try to support and encourage the development of my students’ personal visual language," he shares.
For anyone who wants to develop their own visual language, Matthew emphasises the importance of immersing yourself in what interests you and also starting with drawing. “I do encourage drawing in the broadest sense and understanding visual material, rather than just learning techniques, to find your own way of working with materials and processes.”
“Different people want different things from their creative work, but if you want your work to have more meaning and be something that excites you, it’s about understanding what makes you tick and how you can start to shape them, play with that language and create something that’s personal to you.”
“99.9% of the time, people are surprised by what they produce, the process and themselves. They’re surprised by what they have within themselves to make something work.”
About the Artist
Matthew Harris, a graduate of the textile course at Goldsmiths College in the UK, has been working with textiles since 2000. His work has been shown in a number of group and solo exhibitions throughout the UK, Ireland, and Japan.
Matthew creates artwork that involves dying, cutting and hand stitching, focusing mainly on abstract imagery and translating drawn marks into cloth. Making works that are pieced, patched and assembled, helps Matthew reach his aim to create pieces that explore repetition, pattern and the disrupted or dissonant journey of line and image across and through the surface of cloth.
