Linda : Indigo as 'collage'

Containing indigo within a defined shape requires a boundary. Traditionally, this is a barrier of resistant material – paste, wax, clamps. Through this project I have recorded new approaches to these principles. I have pulled, stretched and cut dough into shapes – investigating their potential to resist dye, while capturing them as images for screen and incorporating these images as discharge prints on cloth.

The immersion of cloth in indigo results in gradations of tone from light to dark. This process is dependent on overdyeing partially submerged sections – from its edges, to its centre, to its entirety. Proportions are judged, and diffusions of colour are built within these spaces. Fundamentally, indigo is applied as a dye and cannot be printed. 

In my most recent body of work I have moved from printing cloth to dyeing paper. Here, I am colouring particles of cellulose fibre with indigo and iron rust, printing a paste, and bonding the fibre to the print in a heat press. As such, this work is a transferral of indigo from the dye vat to paper, as surface material to woven ground.  

Crucially, this approach is enabling my placement of dyed colour as printed ‘collage’, opening up a new avenue for my exploration of composition. It marks a milestone in the development of this project, and sets in motion a new way of thinking about my practice as a location for crafting futures – a place for the transition of textile tradition to contemporary cloth.

Technical support: Jo Hayward

Photographs: Linda Brassington