Welcome to Jenny Bradbury Textile Art
Jenny is a multidisciplinary artist who sees the world around her as a series of patterns. She captures and transforms these into a vision to create imaginative and contemporary abstract interpretations in her textiles. Using a process-based practice, she incorporates mixed media and hand and machine stitch to playfully express her ideas through surface and three-dimensional sculptures. Wanting to share the fulfilment and enjoyment textiles can bring alongside the theraputic advantages of art, Jenny has worked on community projects and currently works with adults with learning disabilities.
My artistic path
In 2020 Jenny started a four year blended learning Foundation Degree Textiles Practice course at Bradford School of Art. On completion of this course in 2024 she started the BA (Hons) Textiles Practice Degree which she will complete in June 2026. During this time Jenny has developed her practice moving to combining mixed media processes creating more conceptual contemporary art. Responding through initial research, sketching and extensive sampling inspired by her curiosity of the materials. Her three-dimensional abstract sculptures provide a playful interpretation to her practice.
My inspiration
Whether the intricate detail of a beautiful landscape or mundane objects of everyday life, Jenny sees the world around her has layered patterns. Interpretated as outline, shapes and forms she breaks these down into separate components, exploring each separately. Firstly, through sketch then extensive sampling by instinctively responding to the material combining mixed media and textiles to reconstruct her concept in a playful and adventurous interpretation.
Featured Collections
Fabric of Place Enriched Envelopments
Backpack - Fabric and mixed media
As part of the Chrysalis Arts artist in residence Slow Art project Fabric of Place, Jenny used a mixture of textiles and print to create this backpack. The project was based in Swaledale, N. Yorkshire and was inspired by its rich mining heritage and rural landscape. The backpack is a response to the drystone walls and varied lichens alongside the popularity of the district with visitors and their attire.
This three-dimensional sculpture was awarded second place at the Festival of Quilts in the Creative Quilt category in 2024.
Enriched Envelopments - Two and three-dimensional mixed media
Enriched Envelopments displays colourful, textural and highly patterned two and three-dimensional sculptures based on the postal system. It is based on mail communications and connections, focusing on the external packaging being more than just a wrapper and becoming a separate item to admire and consider. Informed from research into the 1950’s Mail Art movement and research of the Japanese practice of respect and gratitude when wrapping goods, Jenny used mixed media techniques to decorate the outer wrappers of a series of objects.
Apron of Feelings
Apron - Homemade paper and free machine stitched
In response into a brief to create a art celebrating women in the Ripon workhouse, Jenny researched the resident female population from the 1921 census. The style of an apron was chosen as this would have been a basic part of the uniform worn by these inmates. Made of handmade paper, this represents the fragility and vulnerability of these women and girls. The machine stitched words and images express the possible emotions alongside some of the relative situations and authorities the residents would have encountered. These also highlight the impressions and judgements some of the inmates would have experienced and the stigma this carried.
Seasons-Cubes
Cubes - Mixed media
Jenny is a member of 6 Ply, a group of Yorkshire based textile artists. This Seasons project shows representations of images and colours evoked by the time of year. It was a site-specific installation as part of the nature walk at Horticap, Harrogate. Informed from structures already present in the wooded area, each piece is based on the cube form. Four of the eight cubes were decorated using mixed media showing one of each season individually completed by one of the artists. The remaining four cubes all display one season on each side of the cube, again decorated by each artist. These boxes were suspended in the trees for a twelve-month period.
Preconceptions
This project explores how quotidian, mundane objects can be used to represent self-perception, growth and identity. It challenges our preconceptions thoughts and questions the reasoning behind them. Transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, Jenny uses the universally recognisable object of a teapot as an analogy of the self. Organically developing and evolving her ideas into a biomorphic sculpture, it symbolises how an individual can develop with intrigue and interest without constraints or external control. Created using wire and thread, this represents the strength and vulnerability of the individual.
This was created as part of her BA (Hons) Textiles practice degree based at Bradford School of Art
Threads of Connection
