profile
Jo has loved hand embroidery from childhood. After a City and Guilds course, she joined her local Embroiderers’ Guild branch, a local quilt group and Phoenix Contemporary Textiles to develop and exhibit her work. More recently Prism, an international exhibiting group, has provided opportunities to challenge the boundaries of her textile art.
Under Leslie Morgan’s guidance, she attends a monthly session at Committed to Cloth, to experiment and practise dyeing and printing techniques for creating more complex art cloth.
Jo’s professional interest lies in communication and human behaviour, and she tries to explore this in her textile work. She enjoys using visual imagery to express abstract ideas, often using buildings as metaphors for human identity, and political and social conflict.
qualifications
2002-6 … City & Guilds Design and Craft
membership
Phoenix Contemporary Textiles Group
Prism
Society of Embroidered Work
Wimbledon International Quilters
The Embroiderers’ Guild
exhibitions
2019 … Festival of Quilts, 3rd prize Art Quilt category
2018 …PCTG, ’Collections, Why Things Matter’, Robert Phillips Gallery
2018 … Prism, ‘Transient’, Hoxton, London
2018 … Contemporary Group, Quilters’ Guild
2018 … C2C Open Studio “How long did it take?”
2017 … PCTG, ‘Collections’ Fountain Gallery
2017 … Prism, Fracture’, Hoxton, London and RBSA Gallery, Birmingham
2017 … Festival of Quilts, Birmingham
2017 … Kingston & District Branch Embroiderers’ Guild, Kingston 2016 … PCTG ‘Strata – a Stitched Excavation’, Walton on Thames
2016 … Wimbledon International Quilters
2016 … Festival of Quilts, Birmingham
2016 … C2C ‘A Sense of Community’, Weedon, Northants
2016 … Prism ‘Fracture’,Hoxton, London
2015 … ‘Lines of Communication’ Prism – Hoxton Arches, London
2014 … Festival of Quilts – NEC, Birmingham
2014 … ‘Threads of Conversation’ PCTG – Robert Phillips Gallery, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
2012 … ‘Between Cloth and a Hard Place’, 4 x 4 – Menier Gallery, London / Knitting & Stitching Show, London
2011 … ‘Old World, New Eyes’ PCTG – Robert Phillips Gallery, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
2010 … ‘Alton Estate Project’, PCTG – Bank Gallery, Chobham, Surrey
2009 … RACC Exhibition, Richmond, Surrey
2009 … ‘Concrete, Steel, Cloth’ PCTG – Robert Phillips Gallery, Walton-on-Thames, Surrey
2009 … Exhibition for Volunteers’ Week, Embroiderers’ Guild, Hampton Court Palace, Surrey
2008 … Exhibition Cotman Gallery, Wimbledon, Surrey
2005/8 … ‘4 x 4’ – Menier Gallery, London
2007 … Knitting & Stitching Show (winner Texere Competition), Alexandra Palace, London
contact
Email: thejocoombes@gmail.com