Fibre Art

Ilse Seidel

Ilse Seidel
Fibre Art

Born and bred in Germany, Ilse Seidel moved to New Zealand in 1998.

While working as multimedia designer in the IT industry in her former life, she was always passionate about colour and fibre and inspired by the New Zealand environment she developed her own style as a fibre artist and felt maker – a combination of European tradition set free by the spirit of a young country.

Nature is her inspiration. Leaving behind the big felted wall hangings of earlier days, she is now working with a mix of fibre and non-fibre materials, soft felts, luscious silks, bright fabrics, ribbons, lace, beads, metal, plant material, recycled stuff, plastic, papers, dyes, paints, markers....the list is almost endless, as is the list of techniques, creating her own impression of the world around her and how she feels it.

Long weeks of lockdown led to hours of doodling and slow stitching, a way of meditating through dark times lightened up by bright colours of oil pastels and textile paint.

Her true passion is to create quirky and unusual art and she loves to combine fibre with different materials

Click on the images below to see enlargements of some of her work.

Sophie Littin

Sophie Littin
Collage Fibre Art

Coming from a world of costume making and wearable art, Sophie has recently returned home to NZ after being in the UK for the last 9 years.

She has been relentless in exploring non-traditional, experimental works and seeing where they take her. Each piece giving feedback and instruction for what comes next.

NZ is so unique for its plant life including those found in the humble back yard. Although, the overgrown weeds or dandelions growing through cracks in the concrete, the fallen petals, dead flower heads and dried out autumnal leaves – often the undesirable – is what gives life to her work.

Contrasting these natural elements is her love for graphic colours, striking shapes, and magazine imagery. Like therapeutic colouring in, hours of zoning out and cutting out, arranging, and forming the unformed.

The result? A collaboration of layers of plants, various paper textures, subdued fabrics, cut collage, ripped magazines, and sewn seams. A fragmented vision that feels like an old film photograph recording nature in the moment, while questioning the layers of our thoughts and visual reality.