Alice Spencer

Textiles are one of the oldest forms of material culture. From the time that the most rudimentary cloth was made textiles have served to convey essential ideas about human history, social values and personal identity.

Textiles serve as our second skin. They shelter and adorn, reveal and conceal. They signal to others who we are. Through their intimate relationship to our bodies and the places we live they bear witness to our lives unfolding.

Textiles are the reference in my work. Matisse said textiles were his “working library.” For me they offer a lexicon of associations, structures and patterns that I use to construct narratives for my prints and paintings.

Over the past 40 years I have collected textiles from communities that make traditional textiles. The collection is a resource for my work.

Click on any of the thumbnails above to view the entire series.