#laura thomas

2016 Winner of The Booktopia Designers’ Choice Cover of the Year and The Inkerman & Blunt Best Designed Literary Fiction Book, both awarded by the Australian Book Designers Association. 

Thomas’s design rationale for this project:

“This collection of short stories all focus on young women coming to terms with (or failing to come to terms with) desire, and being desired. The stories are often frank and sexual, and they’re all beautifully crafted. The brief came to me quite open and mentioned the words ‘bright, bold, fun, sexy, hipster – but not too much’.” (source)

Thread Landscape at Garn Lake 2008 for Torfaen Public Art

Laura is also a commercial home furnishings textile designerwith clients including Inch Blue, John Lewis Partnership, Heals and Osborne and Little. She also curates and teaches.

Bird baby blanket for Inch Blue 2007

   Symmetree design for Heals 2011

Laura is best known for her ‘Resonate’ collection of vivid cotton, silk and Lurex threads encapsulated in acrylic resin, creating freestanding sculptural objects or wall panels.

 Spine 2008

  The Resonate work grew out of her determination to push the expected boundaries of woven textiles challenging the notion that textiles are two dimensional and reinterpreting the meaning of warp and weft. Structurally integral relief pleats, folds, loops and ruches can be found in much of her work and her fascination with the construction of cloth is a key characteristic of her artworks.

Lattice 2009

Arc 2010

As a woven textile artist and designer Laura has always been deeply inspired by the unwoven warp threads on a loom and likes to capture the visual impact of the warp: its linear qualities and the optical mixing of pure colour in that moment in time before the warp is tensioned to begin weaving.

  Loose Treads: Red into Orange 2005

Window commission, The Beanery, Canterbury 

Laura always demonstrated an ordered methodical way of thinking even from her school days and whilst exploring different textile disciplines as part of her degree at the University of Central England it was weave that she found a natural affinity for. She loved to explore colour, line and proportion through the constructed cloth and developed a fascination for fabric. The medium leant itself to her love of strong colour and geometry. Since graduating in 1999 Laura has completed an MA at The Royal College of Art and a fellowship with the Ann Sutton Foundation.

Laura Thomas studio

  Meadow Grasses Olive Strip jacquard sketch 2007

In 2013 Laura returned to Wales and set up her studio in the centre of Cardiff where she produces hand-woven fabrics on her 24 shaft computer-driven AVL loom. She also has jacquard fabrics in her portfolio which have been produced at the RCA or in limited quantities by UK mills. Laura received funding and worked collaboratively with Hafod Grange Ltd to explore encapsulating materials in resin. Initially she used a polyester resin (as can be seen in National Trust paper weights) but moved on to acrylic resin for the superior optical quality and increased robustness. The process needs specialist facilities particularly in terms of fume extraction so is not carried out in her own studio but outsourced. She predominantly uses silk, cotton and linen, brightly dyed yarns (not hand dyed) often using light reflective yarns. The outcome created wonderful internal reflections that played with light and angles to great visual effect. The work has leant itself well to the creation of awards where Laura adds laser etching onto the acrylic exterior.

Cardiff Design Festival Award

Ashes Vessel 2009

  The Ashes Vessel 2009 was a commission. The spin and twist of the yarn relates to the spin and twist of the ball in cricket. Laura often uses the opportunity of a commission to move her practice forward and this was such an example. The bulk of Laura’s work is now in the realm of public art and commissions. She particularly relishes the opportunity to work large scale with architecture design teams.

Llanelli glass canopy

Having explored the use of resin in my own work I found Laura's Resonate pieces particularly relevant. In my case I was interested in the notion of how we try to capture memories and hold them safe by encapsulating them in photographs or keepsakes and yet despite our best efforts memories remain beyond our grasp. I also found resin useful to facilitate the transparent, layered nature of memory, how we see through one to another with the accumulation of experience.

Julie Leach - Memory 2014