Ptolemy Mann

The Architecture of Cloth, Colour and Space

Harley Gallery

Hot Chromatic Landscape detail showing the wonderful colours Mann uses

Ptolemy Mannn is a UK based artist, designer and colour consultant.  She graduated from the Royal college of Art in London and trained as a weaver, specialising in making large scale, hand dyed and woven artworks to commission.

Code is huge

Mann has a wide variety of patrons including  hotels, corporate clients and architects.  Her vibrant use of colour was the main reason for the commission for Kings Mill Hospital in Mansfield.

Kingsmill Hospital, Mansfield

The exhibition showed a wide variety of work and included lengths of woven cloth, wall panels and furniture.
Mann often uses the ikat technique where fibres are dyed in a similar way to tie dying.  Bindings create a resist and a skilled artist can make very intricate patterns.  I saw this done in Bali some years ago and the designs were wonderful.

Yellow Adras using the ikat technique

The use of vibrant colour is the most striking thing about the work on show.  Many of the combinations appealed to me especially the pinks and purples.

Circles showing the wonderful colours

The way the colours seem to blend into each other is intriguing and well beyond my understanding.
Mann creates rugs, cushions, furnishing fabric and furniture some of which are available in John Lewis.

A chair before completion

I left the exhibition feeling quite confused.  I appreciated  the skill involved, the colour and the quality of the work I had seen.  I liked most of it very much.  I simply wasn't excited by it.  I had expected to be really thrilled by the fabrics and in a distant sort of way I was.

When I saw the work of Lois Walpole at the same gallery a few weeks earlier and the drawings of Karolina Szymkiewicz I was exhilarated and energised by them.  It made me want to try things out.  Maybe that's it - they felt more accessible, more manageable and I therefore related to it in a very positive way.  Perhaps the only way I can aspire to anything approaching Ptolemy Mann is to go to John Lewis!

This work is made for a very commercial market; it has an industrial feel to it that feels alien to me.  I'm sure this will rumble around in my head for quite some time.