VALÉRIE WARTELLE ART finds new A home at elsie whiteley

Fine Artist Valérie Wartelle will be showcasing some of her beautiful pieces of textile art at Elsie Whiteley!

Valérie is a fine artist working with fibres and textiles. Her practice is rooted in the
traditional craft of wet felting and the manipulation of textiles as an expressive art
form.
Taking the rural environment as her inspiration, she draws on its colour, texture
and form to create evocative semi-abstract landscapes rich in climate. The
compositions are built in layers, hinting at what may lie beneath, and use
translucency and light to create absorbing moods. These are highly textured felt
pieces in which cloth is embedded and threads unravelled, as a painter with
her brush.
Process has always been central to her practice, and through ongoing
exploration of materials’ behaviours, Valérie has over the years perfected a
unique approach to the craft. Fascinated by the organic qualities intrinsic to
the medium, she works solely with natural materials such as wool, silk and linen
fibres.
Brought up in France and French Polynesia, Valérie originally came to the UK to study
Textile Design. Following a career as a designer, then officer in local government,
Valérie set up her art studio in 2014 in Halifax, West Yorkshire.
In 2021, she received a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) award which took her
to the Netherlands to work with artist and activist Claudy Jongstra. In 2022 she was
invited to showcase her work at Collect, International Contemporary Craft and Design
Art Fair, at Sommerset House, London. In 2023, Valérie’s exhibition ‘Closer Still’ was the
first large scale solo show of textile works ever to be shown in the Cube Gallery, The
Biscuit Factory, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Come visit our historical textile mill, grab a coffee and admire these beautiful pieces of artwork!