Biography

I’m a thread based artist and academic who works with and through the literal and metaphoric language of textile practice. I’m currently developing a new body of practice around softness. My most recent work is a large scale tapestry Cloth Body. I work in Swansea, where I live, and also in London. I make, teach, mentor and write. I use textile methodologies in healthcare teaching and arts in health projects.

I worked for many years at Swansea College of Art, where I was a senior lecturer in Contextual Studies and taught undergraduate and postgraduate students. I also managed the MA Contemporary Dialogues: Textiles programme. I am now honorary research fellow at Swansea College of Art. 

My main interest is how making and transforming materials affects us in terms of our well-being and our productivity, in all aspects of our lives. I am a trained and qualified counsellor and have worked in the third sector and the NHS. Although no longer counselling, my interest in what we mean to each other and what objects mean to us persists in my practice and is explored in my PhD research. I like to describe myself as being bothered by cloth, which means that I am very invested in what cloth means to me, what it feels like next to my skin, how it is made and unmade and how it is central to our lives, whether or not we are even aware of this. 

I have a PhD in Textiles from the Royal College of Art. I deliver workshops with Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen and at home in Swansea.

I walked from Carmarthen to Middlesbrough during the autumn of 2018, because my mobile phone sent me there.

Exhibitions

Sometimes all you can do is Walk Solo Exhibition, Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen, March - May 2019

The Beehive Quilt, an on-going engagement memorial project initiated at ‘Beat the Bugs’, Royal College of Nursing, London, July 2018

Processions 2018, The Crafts Council's commissioned artist, working with women staff of Guy's and St. Thomas's NHS Trust, April - June 2018

In The Making Inigo Rooms, Somerset House, London, June 2017

‘Mothers are Wolves…’ Maker in Focus, Oriel Wrecsam, June - July 2016

Wrangler Jacket in By A Thread, Gawthorpe Textiles Collection, May - June 2016

Gathered Again, Mission Gallery, Swansea, June - August 2016

‘Mothers are Wolves …’ Mission Gallery, Swansea, May - June 2016

Co-Respondents, Mission Gallery, Swansea, June 2014

Marking Space, Mission Gallery, Swansea, May - June 2008

Bloodline performance at Knit, Knot, Teapot at The Old Sweetshop Gallery, Southfields, London, April 2008

Conferences, Papers and Public Lectures

‘A Midwifery Quilting Bee: Heterotopic Site of Disruption, Discourse and Reflection’, Textile and Place, Manchester School of Art, 23-24 April 2020 (postponed COVID19)

'Being Human in Modern Healthcare', co-curator, Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, King's College, London, July 3, 2018

'Living Threadwise: Tales of Magic String, Continuing Bonds and Transforming Space' for Textile and Place, Manchester School of Art and the Whitworth Art Gallery, April 12-13, 2018

'The Emotional Labour of Lines, Threads and Continuing Bonds' for The Sixth International Oral History Network Symposium, Helsinki, Finland, November, 2017

'On Being Close Knit: Intimacy and Exclusivity in Group Portraiture' Public Lecture, The National Gallery, London, 18 April 2016

'Touching Things: Memory, Nostalgia and the Hand Knitted Garment’  for Memory, Melancholy and Nostalgia, 4th International Interdisciplinary Memory Conference, University of Gdansk, Poland, September 17-18th 2015.

'Always in the Act of Becoming: Folds, Scissors and Cleavage in Giovanni Battista Moroni’s Il Tagliapanni' for The Erotic Cloth, Art Workers' Guild, London, March 2015 (organised by UCA and Manchester Metropolitan University).

'Soft Stuff: The ‘Super Important’ hand knitted garment as transitional object', Association of Psychosocial Studies, December 2014, University of Central Lancashire.

'Soft Stuff: Knitted Garments as Unique Object Ciphers', for The Finnish Oral History Society Annual Symposium, University of Helsinki November 2014.

Conference Chair: Artes Mundi 6, Dialogues on Conflict: Feminist Perspectives and Art Practice, 16 May 2014

'Lost and Found: Narratives of the Hand Knitted Sweater', for The Lives of Objects, Wolfson College, Oxford University, September 2013.

'The Hand Knitted Jumper, exemplar of Fashion's Agency', for Barthes, Benjamin and Fashion, Manchester University, June 2013.

'Re(a)d Knit: Body: Mother: Home', for  In The Loop, Southampton University, September 2012.   

Writing

Guest Editor, Cynfas 2: Arts in Health, National Museums Wales, November, 2020

Sometimes all you can do is Walk Catalogue Essay, 2019

‘Bloodline: An Experiment in Knit and Proximity, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Royal College of Art, London, 2018

'In Between: A Darker Thread', Catalogue Essay for the exhibition 'A Darker Thread' at Oriel Myrddin Gallery, Carmarthen

Folds, Scissors and Cleavage in Giovanni Battista Moroni's Il Tagliapanni, Chapter one in 'The Erotic Cloth', Bloomsbury

Read Knit: Body/Mother/Home in 'Knitting and Well Being', Textile Vol 12, Issue 1, 2014 p34-57

Stitching Stories and Shadows: The Work of Jeanette Orrell

Folds: The Work of Ainsley Hillard Selvedge Journal Issue 36 Sep/Oct 2010 p.90

On the Edge: The Work of Muriel Clement Catalogue Essay, Mission Gallery, Swansea.

Awards

Arts and Intelligence Award ‘Unfolding Anna Freud’s Archive: New Knowledge through Soft Handling’ a collaboration with Dr Alicia Kent, King’s College, London. (Currently ‘on-hold’ because of COVID19.)

Crafts Council Parallel Practices Award October 2016 - April 2017 with The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King’s College London.

King’s Artist, The Cultural Institute, King’s College, London, from March 2017 to the present

Free Range Textile Award 2002

Elizabeth Jefferies Textile Scholarship 2002

Ted and Nina Archer Prize for Law and Social Sciences 1986

Contact Angela

angela.maddock@mac.com

Other Sites

Royal College of Art

Swansea College of Art, University of Wales Trinity St David