Kim McCormack

Beauly, Scotland

Based just outside of Beauly in the Highlands of Scotland, Kim works with a variety of textiles methods. She splits her time between making her own work and teaching art, design and textiles in Inverness. She is heavily committed to the exploration of the ethical issues and solutions around the textiles industry with her young learners who never fail to impress her with their energy and creativity.

She studied Printmaking at Gray’s School of art in Aberdeen and then moved on to do an MA in Printmaking at Chelsea College of Art in London. Following her MA, she undertook a printmaking fellowship at Cheltenham College of Art during which time, she became involved in applying her printmaking practise to textiles. Kim quickly became fully immersed in the vast scope of possibilities within the world of textiles. Printmaking has always on some level informed her textiles based work, however she is most in her element; her right place when drawing and painting with thread.

­­­As an artist living and working in the beautiful countryside deep in the Scottish Highlands, Kim’s current work is a response to the many country trails and deep forests which surround her. The countryside is so completely cyclic. The leaves she gathers are used to botanically print the bases for embroideries. As the leaves imprint, she looks at them as being fossilized into the fabrics. As Kim walks, the textures of the ground under her feet change from soft, mossy land to overgrown to marshy to tangled roots. She moves through forest, arable fields, marshland and riverside. Her walk through the familiar sections, visiting favourite trees and plants; the Dogwood whose leaves yield the most beautiful lime greens, the Oak which is most preferred by the oak gall wasps, the swathes of butterbur, the wild geraniums and the various wonderful lichens. Walking, looking, listening and gathering leaves to use later in the printed panels. This work is broken into grids which tell the story of her steps along these old friends which she walks most days and whose subtle changes she watches throughout the year.

Find out more about Kim:

Website kimberleymactextiles.co.uk

Instagram @kimberleymactextiles