Amanda Whewell - Art Exhibition

Mon 12th August - mid November at Cyber Cafe, Market St, New Mills

This exhibition takes its inspiration from Aboriginal, Mexican and Indian designs.

After leaving the warmer climes of South East England Amanda now lives in New Mills with her husband and three young children.

Since moving to the North West Amanda embarked on a total career change, moving from a management position in IT to retrain as a freelance creative designer utilising a variety of art and craft techniques.

Over the past ten years Amanda has gained qualifications in art and craft at local colleges and has also studied many techniques that she brought into her popular workshops for Hobbycraft and Card Creation.

Using a variety of materials and her skills in creative design Amanda actively links into the works of famous and less well known artists and designers of the 19th and 20th centuries as well as taking inspiration from traditional designs from around the world.

Think you recognise Amanda's face? You may have seen Amanda on Granada TV's "Simply DIY".

This exhibition includes some pictures using the batik method (pictures 1-7). Melted wax is painted onto the fabric, which acts as a resist when the picture is immersed in a dye bath, the wax is then removed. The pictures can be re-waxed and dyed several times to create a number of colours.

The silk paintings 8, 9 and 10 are painted freestyle and decorated with coloured outliners called gutta. A salt technique is also used for some background effects.

The small silk paintings (11-14) are based on Indian textile designs and on these pictures the gutta is also used as a resist

Pictures 15-18 are based on Aboriginal designs and are multi media pictures created using a combination of stencilling, gilding and three dimensional fabric paints.

Traditional Mexican designs are the inspiration for the felt collages (19-22).