All That Remains

Bottle, Neil (2019) All That Remains. [2D Design, Craft, Digital art, Exhibition/show, Textiles]

5198:110263
"All That Remains" - Printed textile artwork, 120 x 180 cm

"All That Remains" - Printed textile artwork, 120 x 180 cm

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5198:110265
" Winnie's Legacy", printed textile artwork, 105 x 132 cm

" Winnie's Legacy", printed textile artwork, 105 x 132 cm

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5198:110267
"Chasing the Birds Away", printed cotton fabric 90 x 90 cm textile artwork

"Chasing the Birds Away", printed cotton fabric 90 x 90 cm textile artwork

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5198:110268
"Surreptitious" printed textile artwork 100 x 100 cm

"Surreptitious" printed textile artwork 100 x 100 cm

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5198:110269
"All That Remains" work in progress

"All That Remains" work in progress

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5198:110270
"Follow Me" printed textile artwork 105 x 184 cm

"Follow Me" printed textile artwork 105 x 184 cm

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5198:117235
All That Remains Portfolio (48MB)
Creators:
Bottle, Neil
Description/Abstract:

The “All That Remains” body of work was created as celebration of 30 years working as a textiles practitioner and acts as a milestone, repositioning my practice in a research context unconfined by the constraints of my commercial fashion print work.
Nostalgia, in the context of the digital age, is a key focus in the work and through the work I aim to reconnect and remember the precious fragments of my archive of family photographs. My context is an autobiographical narrative printed onto cloth, a memory bank, in which both physical photographic prints and digitally captured images are deconstructed and re-presented, the familiarity of which resonates and references one’s own values and connections with our past, present and future.
In a societal context our connection to our past is rapidly diminishing as the materiality of our physical world and spoken word as communication are replaced with digital platforms. I aim to evoke a collective experience of nostalgia, to invite curiosity and discussion about the way we recall past memory, interact with digitally created images and consider the value of the physical artefact in a virtual world. The linking of past memories, people and experiences creates both an emotional response and empathy for one’s own personal story.
I reference contemporary photographic theory which explores the influence of social media on human behaviour. Drawing on memory both real and imagined, fuelled by self-reflection and a relentless drive to experiment and create new work, the roots of my creativity are confronted, unravelled and exposed through print on cloth, the medium which first inspired me to create as a young child.
As a digital settler, born in the late 1960s and with three decades of analogue printed textiles experience, my approach to the use of Computer Aided Design is very different to a generation of younger digital native designers, who have never experienced a pre-digital existence. My lifelong passion for pattern and cloth combined with three decades of working as a print designer have equipped me with an analogue tool kit, with which I explore the world of digital design.
For over a decade I have pushed the boundaries of computer software in development of my work and in the pursuit of the highest quality digital print resolution available. With the development of the latest generation of digital printers, digitally printed textiles can now rival the quality of hand printing and even surpass it with the limitless opportunities it presents for creative expression. Digital production methods are often associated with mass production but my approach is more similar to that of a painter, building up complex surfaces and layers of imagery and my creative outputs are carefully crafted, honed, reworked and refined digital one-off pieces which have required a fluency in the complex language of our digital world.
The research outcomes, presented as a series of wall hung textiles art works, will be showcased at the new Contemporary Applied Art Gallery in London and a one man show at the Ruthin Craft Centre in Denbighshire.

Item Type:
Art/Design Item
Date:
July 2019
Copyright Holders:
Neil Bottle
Material:
Printed cotton and silk fabrics
Funders:
UCA Research Fund, Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin, Denbighshire
Locations / Venues:
Location
From Date
To Date
Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin, Denbighshire, UK
20 October 2019
20 January 2020
Contemporary Applied Art, Paddington Street, London, UK
9 September 2018
25 October 2018
Projects or Series:
REF2021
Additional Information:

Authored review to be provided by Sue Prichard, Curator at Queens House, Royal Museums, Greenwich, London.

Editorial piece written for Selvedge Magazine by Jane Audas

Uncontrolled Keywords or tags :
Printed textiles, digital textile art, digital craft, digital one-off
Schools:
School of Fashion & Textiles
Related URLs:
Depositing User:
Neil Bottle
Date Deposited:
06 Aug 2019 15:31
Last Modified:
08 Jun 2021 09:33
Art/Design Categories:
2D Design, Craft, Digital art, Exhibition/show, Textiles
URI:
https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/5198

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