‘Colour is my obsession. Through a unique process of extremely refined hand dyeing and weaving I have been able to capture powerful ‘colourfields’ within a constructed surface. Each thread echo’s a painted line. Intelligent colour theory underpins an emotional exploration of intuitive colour.’
‘Colour is my obsession. Through a unique process of extremely refined hand dyeing and weaving I have been able to capture powerful ‘colourfields’ within a constructed surface. Each thread echo’s a painted line. Intelligent colour theory underpins an emotional exploration of intuitive colour.’
Ptolemy Mann’s unique hand-dyeing and weaving techniques form the foundation for her distinctive wall-based, architectural artworks, establishing a modern-day Bauhaus philosophy that blends art making, design, and intelligent color theory. Over twenty-five years, Mann has honed her approach, recently culminating in a new series, Thread Painting, which explores the dynamic relationship between paint and textile. In this series, she hand-dyes and weaves warp threads for the ground cloth directly on the loom before stretching them over a frame. A subsequent application of acrylic paint creates a gestural color field that contrasts sharply with the linear woven ground, merging the Abstract Expressionist “soak stain painting” technique with a Bauhaus vision of craftsmanship.
Mann actively breaks the traditional rules of both weaving and painting. As Ann Coxon, curator at the Tate Modern, observes, the brushstrokes in Thread Painting are “loaded with paint and with meaning.” Coxon explains that these strokes, while seemingly a “violent obliteration of the woven surface,” actually enrich the piece by adding more color. The paint interacts with the woven ground in complex ways, sometimes juxtaposing and harmonizing, sometimes soaking and bleeding into the fibers, and sometimes appearing to float on top. This interplay of dyed and applied color blurs the lines between structure and surface, the woven and the painted, the thread and the trace.
Contextualizing Mann’s work, Coxon notes that the historical weight of both painting and weaving inevitably shapes our understanding. However, she emphasizes that Mann’s thread paintings possess their own “seductive beauty and materiality,” inviting viewers to become fully immersed.
Ptolemy Mann’s work has been widely exhibited, with solo exhibitions in the US, UK, Switzerland, and Germany. Her site-specific installations include Circadian Rhythm, a commission for the 9th-floor restaurant in the Blavatnik building at the Tate Modern, London. She has also published her first monograph, Thread Painting.
Ptolemy Mann lives and works in Britain.
Taste Contemporary
Monique Deul Consultancy
Rue du Vieux-Billard 7
1205 Genève
Switzerland