Sarah Byrne Staffordshire, United Kingdom

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I am a West-Midlands based artist working with textile and print-based responses to family photography. My current research and studio practice positions traditional wool-craft within a contemporary art practice, and celebrates the slow processes of craft-making with its historical connection to recovery and comfort.

I was taught to crochet in the months following the loss of my dad, and following this, when my new hobby quickly overcame my life and physical space, there began a slow recognition of the connection between those two life events.

I then discovered craft's rich documented history of tactile comfort and its intrinsic connection to loss, and this research led me to introduce textiles to my practice for the first time.

Prior to this experience, my practice formed an autobiographical exploration of photographs from my childhood. Today I continue to be led by family snapshots, however with my practice now seemingly in dialogue with my father. As I learn and develop new skills in wool-craft, the resulting experimental materials are positioned in response to my dad's photographs, previously unseen and discovered posthumously. His photographs guide my process, where connections are created through colour, but also where space for memory, narrative and my connection to our relationship is maintained.

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