Untangling Colour – Vicky Ellis

About

Vibrant woven sails and textiles inspired by nineteenth-century Welsh shipwrecks and coastal histories.

Untangling Colour is an exhibition of bold, expressive rugs and wall hangings by artist weaver Vicky Ellis, inspired by shipwrecks along the Welsh coast during the nineteenth century. Living in a small west Wales village once known for shipbuilding, Ellis grew up surrounded by maritime history and the poignant legacy of vessels lost at sea. The evocative names of these ships—and the brief accounts of their fates, such as Vigilance abandoned, Cupid saved, and Prosperity salvaged—form the emotional core of this body of work.
The exhibition features seven monumental woven "sails," some exceeding three metres in height, each telling stories of bravery, survival, and human fallibility. Originally trained as a furniture designer, Ellis has woven for over fifty years. Influenced by the Bauhaus movement, she bridges fine art and functional weaving, describing her work as "paintings in yarn." Working spontaneously and without preliminary drawings, she uses saturated, undiluted colour and flat-weave techniques to create dynamic, immersive textiles driven by the interaction of colour and material.