Artist: Katerina Knight

A blonde woman is a white t-shirt, wearing simple gold jewellery, stands just behind two overlapping stretches of translucent fabric, each embroidered with tiny flowers. The one running diagonally is a very thin, delicate pink chiffon decorated with tiny blue flowers; the other runs more vertically – a delicate web of incredibly thin natural fibres embroidered with tiny flowers and petals.

MA Textiles
Royal College of Art

Katerina is a textile artist.

Working with embroidery, needle lace and natural dyeing, Katerina produces one-of-a-kind textile artefacts that forge links to the ancient origins of craft, and explore personal, spiritual and ecological healing through making. Working slowly and sensitively, her machine and chemical free practice is built on a foundation of hand-based skills, techniques, labour and tools. The materials for her work are deeply connected to nature’s cycles, rhythms and processes, gathered from the land over time, foraged locally, or grown on her allotment in Worcestershire.

Find out more

_katerinaknight

www.katerinaknight.co.uk

KaterinaKnightTheLibraryOfLivingMaterials

Clockwise from top left: Holding a Garden in My Hands; The Library of Living Materials; The Healing Lace; The Healing Lace

In:Site 2024

Katerina was one of 14 artists selected to produce a participatory, drop-in workshop for a public audience at In:Site 2024. Exploring the theme of care, their workshop developed and incorporated the ideas, techniques, approaches and materials used in their own practice.

Textile artist Katerina Knight attaching an embroidered leaf onto the bare branch of a tree. Other colourful leaves, embroidered using different stitches, hang off of different branches.

Photograph by Hayley Salter

Katerina’s project, A Tree of Embroidered Leaves, was inspired by the trees depicted in the stained glass windows. She created a tree of embroidered leaves, helping people of all skill levels and abilities to contribute by working directly into leaves using a range of embroidery stitches.

A small black box filled with waxy leaves of various colours - orange, black, red, green, yellow - surrounded by spools of embroidery thread and pieces of fabric with examples of different kinds of embroidery stitches.

A close up of hands stitching orange thread into a green leaf.

A close up of hands tying a yellowed, embroidered leaf onto a bare branch, next to other hanging embroidered leaves.

Upwards shot of Katerina Knight's 'Tree of Embroidered Leaves' - tree branches with embroidered leaves handing off of them, tied on with string - against the backdrop of the Nativity stained glass window, designed by Edward Burne-Jones and constructed by William Morris, currently in Birmingham Cathedral.

Photographs by Hayley Salter