FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OUR LOOPS EXHIBITORS
Loops sees the creation of a large-scale collaborative artwork by these 6 talented artists centred around the theme of loops and continuums. Many months in the making and many miles apart, this is a truly unique celebration of international collaboration and the lasting allure of textiles.
ANDI WALKER
Andi Walker is a Leeds based artist, specialising in Constructed Textiles. Andi’s practice encompasses three key areas: materials, ink, and cloth. They work with a combination of materials, both hard and soft; they draw with ink, and design contemporary garments and costumes using both. Deeply rooted across all areas is storytelling, where Andi explores themes of identity, history, and societal inequalities.
Their work featured in Loops explores the loop as a sculptural and symbolic form. It unfolds in three parts; a collection of garments incorporating loops as design elements, sculptural dyed loops that interact with gravity and space, loops that shift in rhythm and pattern through suspension and reconfiguration.
Some sculptural loops are more rigid, made of canvas, shifting form depending on how they fall or are handled, inviting tactile engagement. Some of the loops are made using shirting fabric – referencing both the body and the high-end worsted wool cloth Sunny Bank Mills once produced for suiting. No garments were made here, only the cloth, so these unmade garments in worsted wool speak to both absence and possibility.
By engaging with the site’s manufacturing past, this work contributes to its ongoing relationship with textiles artists in its Gallery space. In this way, the project becomes part of the mill’s evolving narrative, a continuum where cloth – like history – cycles between past and present, continuity and transformation.
Some of the loops are dyed using a partial immersion method, with sections suspended to control dye absorption. Once dried, they are rotated and re-hung, creating layered zones of colour that shift depending on their display. Each repositioning alters the composition and rhythm, emphasising transformation through repetition. This rhythm – and the potential for constant change – is central to the work.
Loops appear throughout nature, human behaviours political systems. They can be sustaining, like ecological cycles or supportive routines, yet also restrictive patterns that trap us in repetition. In today’s political climate, many loops are being disrupted or forcibly broken, whether through climate crisis, systemic injustice, or the suppression of rights. Returning to the loop as a form—simple, cyclical, and persistent—feels quietly radical.
The wall-based loops remain infinitely variable – their impact shifting with each new arrangement. These small gestures prompt larger questions: What holds us? What confines us? Which loops do we choose to remain within, and which must we undo?
“Materiality is at the heart of my practice. I use textiles as both medium and metaphor, reworking familiar materials to reveal new possibilities. These loops are part of my broader exploration of how stories – like fabric – are formed, unmade, and reimagined. Rooted in the language of garments and the memory of the mill, this work moves between continuity and disruption, honouring the past while embracing change. The loop, in its many forms, reminds us that history is not fixed—it is shaped and reshaped by those who engage with it. Through these shifting, rhythmic structures, I invite reflection on the cycles we inhabit which ones sustain us, which ones confine us, and which ones we have the power to break and remake.”
GEA VAN ECK
Gea van Eck is a Dutch textile artist, born in Leiden. Growing up next to her grandfather’s scrap company, Gea was surrounded by mountains of iron objects. This field of treasures was her playground and she grew up to be a maker and a visual narrator.
After her studies at the HKU (Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht), she mastered multiple techniques, including painting with egg tempera, printmaking, and needle felting. She has exhibited her work in various international exhibitions and has also initiated unique art projects, such as living and working in a former sex boat on the Nijverheidskade in Utrecht for one week, exploring the relationship between commerce and art.
Using realism as a metaphor, her work carries multiple layers of meaning. She often reinterprets known narratives to comment on contemporary events.
In addition to her work as an artist, Gea is also a teacher. She loves contributing to a creative mindset and fostering a can-do attitude in young children. She aims to participate in communal projects outside of her studio to share her passion for art and collaboration.
“As a child I was told almost daily to look with my eyes and not with my hands. I don’t drop things very often anymore, but I never stopped looking with my hands. This sensory connection to my environment finds its expression in sculpture. I am passionate about shapes and volumes. I like to fight gravity and love 3D objects because they literally take up space. You can feel their presence, touch them. The residual space gets a meaning and as a viewer you relate physically to the work. This adds layers of meaning and ways of interpretation that I find very valuable.
My artistic inspiration stems from observations of human behaviour and interactions. With a blend of astonishment and compassion, I strive to capture these experiences. I like to reinterpret known narratives and metaphors to comment on contemporary issues. Using the communal understanding of a subject to highlight or question a point of view. Apart from this metaphorical, narrative approach I also have an instinctual and spiritual connection to my work, automatically tapping into the creative cloud and making instinctive decisions.
Wool is my medium of choice. I fell in love with the versatility and look and feel of the material. My objects are soft and cuddly with a confrontational twist. I use wool to emphasize tactility and warmth and sometimes add acrylic resin for contrast.
My working process is very time consuming. I worked on the Pieta, for example, for more than a year. I stab in wool with a single needle. Thousands of tiny pokes eventually generate a sculpture. I regularly work with my eyes closed, relying on touch to determine the shape. The process of poking is alternately artisanal and meditative. Every element of the piece absorbed the thoughts and events of the time I worked on it.
The swan in the cage featured in Loops refers to the story of Leda and the swan where Zeus turns into a swan and forces himself on Leda. My piece shows Leda trapped with her swan, symbolizing the ever-evolving nature of personal experiences and perspectives. At every stage of life you relate to past events differently. As a teenager, a young adult, as a mother, from the point of view of a 50 year old woman, every time a new perspective. Some memories should have never been a part of you, but you have no choice but to find some sort of peace with them. Again and again.”
HANNAH ROBSON
Hannah Robson is a Leeds based artist trained in woven textiles. She combines her technical grounding in textiles with an open approach to research and willingness to experiment with materials and processes – which includes hand weaving in the studio and working directly with manufacturers.
Hannah uses both traditional and unconventional materials for weaving, from wool and silk to copper and paper, manipulating material qualities to explore colour, light and space. She interested in the spatial qualities of textiles and how their quiet ubiquity makes them a potent marker of time and change. She explores the relationship between textiles and architecture: how textiles can amplify the elemental changes in environments, using the interplay of light and shadow, subtle shifts in density and texture, and the movement of cloth in air currents.
An experienced technical weaver, she draws on rich histories of textile making. Materials leave traces of history and Hannah is interested in how these legacies form relationships with textiles.
Often working with paper yarns, wire and materials with inherent sculptural properties, Hannah explores the subtle power of textiles to transform our surroundings. Hannah is interested in the continuity of threads within complex woven forms, and often create works where threads break free from woven grids and twist into new directions, whist remaining part of a continuum of core threads which form the warp and weft.
Hannah is inspired by the connections and infrastructures, both natural and man-made which make up our world – from electrical wiring to leaf skeletons – these systems overlap in a complex, synchronised and endless dance. For Loops, Hannah has drawn from the mill environment at Sunny Bank Mills, especially in the Mechanic’s office and the disused spaces of the Old Woollen. The work made for Loops has been informed by the rhythms and cycles of production at the mill and the left-over loops, chains, links and belts found on site, which would have been integral in machinery and processes of industrial weaving.
For the collaboration, Hannah is interested in how fabric and form are connected within sculpture. Each artist brings a personal sense of materiality and unique response to the theme. The outcomes explore the tension between materials and new potential created by combining different sensibilities. It is a playful and tangible celebration of creativity, connectivity and togetherness.
Hannah was trained in woven textiles and gained a BA from Winchester School of Art including an ERASMUS exchange at l’ENSCI – Les Ateliers in Paris, and an MA degree from the Royal College of Art. Shortly after graduating, Hannah was commissioned by the Crafts Council to create new work for Collect Open 2018 and for the inaugural show at Make Hauser & Wirth, Somerset. Since then, Hannah has undertaken commissions for woven sculptures and installations for wide ranging settings: from Kettle’s Yard to Aesop Skincare and Salts Mill as well as interior settings such as hotels and offices and domestic private commissions. Hannah is open to the possibilities of processes, materials and collaboration. In 2021, Hannah as awarded funding from Arts Council England to give a new lease of live to an unused jacquard loom through a series of creative collaborations, the results of which were presented in the 1912 Mill at Sunny Bank Mills in 2023.
HANNEKE VAN BROEKHOVEN
Hanneke van Broekhoven is a Dutch artist based in Nijmegen. She works in a range of media, predominently creating sculptures from textile and steel.
“When I am asked to tell what I do, I usually say I make sculptures of textile and steel. For some years that was an adequate description. But – like many artists – I like to try different media. For example, I created an installation of garden hoses cut up in little rings and tied together, making stop motion videos inspired by natural transformation processes throughout.
Textile sculptures are my specialty. They are internationally appreciated for their high level of craftsmanship, for their convincing representation of human anatomy and for their vulnerable appearance. My work is always very labor intensive, whatever medium I use. I like to zoom in to the smallest detail, but also leave parts rough and unfinished. It’s a balancing act. The result is both beautiful and imperfect. Because it takes so much time, the work has the opportunity to develop and deepen. It never turns out the way I originally envisioned it.
I love to see something grow, ripen, develop. The mosses on stones, the vine on the wall, plankton under a microscope, my work, my child. It can go fast, almost by itself. And sometimes it stops or another, thriving organism displaces it. The concept of our communal installation at Sunny Bank Mills is in line with that. It can be adapted and expanded. I hope it will grow and travel to different places.
In September, I moved to a new studio. The former tenant was a blacksmith and I was able to take over a large amount of her equipment and materials. Hannah Robson came up with the idea of connecting our modules with hooks, which is an idea I built on. The iron modules are forged into plankton-like shapes. They can serve as a base for the textile modules of the other artists, and link them together as part of the collaborative installation.
The old buildings from Sunny Bank Mills are a perfect habitat for my dripping installation, Falling. It refers to the transience and cyclic nature of natural phenomena. The piece was created from recycled garden hoses cut up in rings and tied together with steel wire.
Medusa was created in reference to the Greek myth. In Dante’s Divine Comedy, Medusa symbolises despair. Don’t look her in the eye, or you’ll turn to stone. Freud links Medusa’s beheading to castration anxiety (Das Medusenhaupt, 1922).
According to the feminist interpretation, Medusa represents the angry, strong woman who poses a threat to patriarchal society.
For my installation Say No Evil, I started using cheesecloth for sculpting. The transparent, soft fabric represents the skin: the permeable and fragile border between one’s inner and outer world – an important theme for me. I first sewed the fabric and then filled it with fiber fill. The figure is built from the outside in.
JANE CLAIRE WILSON
Jane Claire Wilson is a practice led artist from North Yorkshire who creates textile sculptures to explore themes relating to place and space.
“As part of Loops, I have created a series of Textile Sculptures called In the Loop which will form part of the collaborative artwork in the exhibition. The form of each sculpture is inspired by the journey of a thread during the process of sewing on a domestic sewing machine. Each sculpture captures the looping movement of the thread as it unwinds from the bobbin; passes through the needle; stitches through the fabric; joins with thread from the lower bobbin; and finally, is cut and knotted.
I created these looped pieces to emphasise the collaborative nature of our project. We have each created a myriad of loops along our own thread-based journey which have now been metaphorically (and literally) stitched together.
I have also created a sculpture called Out of the Loop which is exhibited away from the Gallery Space, in the old disused Dye House. The form is inspired by the looping motions my body carried out during the making of the wrapped sculptures, as I wind, unwind and rewind threads.
I created this sculpture to visualise our individual experiences of the collaborative process. A significant aspect of the collaboration is the fact that we are based in two different countries and therefore have been isolated from each other physically throughout the preparation for the exhibition. Even within each country we are working alone in our own studios and at times have felt out of the loop. On a more positive note, the sculpture also reflects how we have connected as a group – as the media, form and colour palette visually connect this sculpture to the main exhibition.
I have created all the sculptures using a wrapping process; building up layers of threads and fabrics to create rich colours and textures. I chose wrapping because this too creates loops as I wrap around the wooden, wire and textile internal structures. The fabrics and threads are all reclaimed; either from charity shops, friends or repurposed from my old artworks. This recycling of materials creates new loops in the stories and memories of the fabrics and helps to promote a circular economy. As a group we set up a gift exchange, sharing materials and finished pieces, that we have then incorporated into our own artwork, looping together skills and ideas.
Throughout the project, I have worked with a colour palette of whites and blacks with splashes of red and green. The palette is inspired by the painted walls found in the old Mechanic’s Office at Sunny Bank Mills. I am particularly attracted to the red horizontal stripe that separates the green from the white.
I am playing with scale, and I hope that when the audience walk around the sculptures they too create loops with their body and eyes and become part of the collaboration”.
After working in Education and International Development, Jane completed an Access to Art and Design Course at York College, followed by an MA in Creative Practice at Leeds Arts University. Jane is currently completing a Doctorate in Fine Art Textiles at Teesside University, researching how making textile artefacts creates a narrative of thresholds. She has exhibited throughout Yorkshire; in response to Gallery Open Calls and whilst a member of York Textile Artists and North Yorkshire Open Studios. Since winning the Scott Creative Art Foundation Emerging Artist Award, Jane has been an active member of their peer support group; Scaffold.
Jane is a Community Artist based at Rural Arts, Thirsk. Her role includes facilitating the children’s art club and delivering a creative aging project that provides one to one art sessions for rurally or socially isolated adults.
MONIKA LOSTER
Monika Loster is a Polish-born artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice focuses on fiber-based works, sculptures and often larger-scale installations built from mesh structures combined with textile elements such as hand-dyed hemp fibers, hessian cloth, rope, and processed tree bark.
“In the Autumn of 2023, I took part in an art residency at Sunny Bank Mills, where I learned to weave using both floor and table looms. The woven samples I produced during this time were integrated into a site-specific piece titled The Viewfinder, which remains on display at the mill.
Following the residency, I began developing a new project to return to Sunny Bank Mills. My proposal was met with enthusiasm, and the idea expanded into a collaborative effort involving artists from the Netherlands and Yorkshire, coming together to create something unique to the site.
While preparing my contribution to the collaborative project, I returned to techniques like embroidery and felting on a larger scale – methods I hadn’t used in some time. As a group, we focused on building a cohesive outcome, while making sure each artist’s distinctive approach remained visible within the collective work.
Rosette is a large-scale textile installation originally created during a site visit to a historic tower in Germany. Constructed from jute fabric and beeswax, with red-dyed hemp fibers applied in radiating formations, the piece is structured in four interlocking modules, that together, form a rosette-like shape. This modular approach made the hands-on creation more manageable, allowing each section to be developed with greater control and attention to detail and echoes the visual logic of the work itself: an intricate composition of repeated loops and rhythmic structures.
Thematically, Rosette resonates strongly with the idea of ‘loops and continuums.’ Its radial form suggests a continuous flow – an inward and outward movement that reflects cycles in both nature and thought. The use of materials such as hemp and wax (organic, malleable, and resilient) adds to the sense of a living system in which repetition becomes both structural and symbolic.
What began as a site-specific response has now evolved into a piece that engages more broadly with ideas of recurrence and transformation. Whether viewed as a window, a mandala, or a hive-like structure, Rosette invites the viewer to trace the layers of labor, memory, and motion embedded in its form. In this new setting, it acts as a visual meditation on the way patterns – whether personal, material, or conceptual – carry forward, loop back, and create meaning through repetition.
A viewfinder is a small optical device, often used in cameras or binoculars that help the user focus and frame their subject. While it restricts the field of vision, it sharpens attention, guiding the eye toward what truly matters. In that sense, it’s both a boundary and a portal, a mechanism for composing the essential.
My piece, The Viewfinder, evolved as a natural continuation after the completion and exhibition of Rosette. My creative process usually involves an abundance of sketches and conceptual offshoots that don’t always make it into the final form. Instead of discarding these strands of thought, I often return to them, reworking, reshaping, and integrating them into new projects. This revisiting is itself a kind of loop: an ongoing dialogue with past ideas, made fresh through new approaches.
Created during my residency at Sunny Bank Mills, the work explores the possibilities of woven structures in a sculptural context. The residency provided the perfect space to re-engage with weaving techniques, some of which I hadn’t applied in years – and to push them into three-dimensional forms. The process of weaving, with its repetitive actions and layered patterns became both medium and metaphor.
The Viewfinder reflects on how ideas circle back, how processes repeat with variation, and how meaning is constructed through both continuity and transformation. It’s a sculptural interpretation of looping thought – threaded, literal, and conceptual – offering a moment of focus within the broader continuum of making.
Within the science of quantum physics, there’s a theory that everything in the universe is interconnected – a concept known as the implicate order, where hidden patterns shape our reality beneath the surface. When approaching the making of my piece, Everything is Connected, I wanted to explore this idea on a more personal level, especially during a period where I found myself gravitating toward smaller, more intimate framed works.
At the time, I was already experimenting with deconstructing and restructuring natural materials, which led me to begin making my own paper using a mix of fibers and recycled elements. Keen to maintain my affinity for textile and fiber-based processes, I began exploring how embroidery could interact with these handmade paper surfaces. By applying hemp filaments and thread, I was able to create a cohesive relationship between paper, print, and soft textile textures.
Everything is Connected is part of a series of works titled Habitat. These smaller works have allowed me to share more personal narratives – stories rooted in emotion, memory, or internal reflection. Their scale and material tactility invite closer attention, encouraging a more immediate and accessible connection with the viewer. In contrast, my larger sculptural installations, often made of mesh and heavier fibers, tend to center on broader, more abstract themes of place and cultural context. They ask for a more interpretive engagement and don’t always lend themselves to personal storytelling in the same way.
This particular body of work reflects on interconnectedness, how our actions and motivations are shaped by where we come from, and how those roots quietly influence the paths we take forward.”
see more