London Craft Week: Dalia James - Chromatic Threads, Crafted by Hand
There’s a snap, a fizz, an electric brightness to Dalia James’ woven artworks that feels like opening the windows wide on a spring morning. Part geometry, part joy, and entirely intentional, her pieces hum with colour and structure - an instinctive celebration of weaving as both craft and contemporary art.
Dalia James in her studio. Photo Credit: James Champion
This May, as part of Masters and Makers at Atelier Comó for London Craft Week, Dalia brings her dynamic approach to textiles to an audience hungry for bold voices in craft. Based at Cockpit Studios in Bloomsbury, her studio practice balances precision and spontaneity. A graduate of Loughborough University’s Woven Textiles programme, Dalia’s artistic foundation is deeply rooted in the technical, but her work never feels constrained. Instead, it pops - rhythmically composed works that nod to Bauhaus cool while pulsing with a warm modern soul.
Dalia James, Yellow Red Blue I, II, 2023. Photo Credit: James Champion
At the heart of her practice is colour. Not just as decoration, but as language. “Colour is such an integral part of my work,” she says, “that I was curious to focus on the root of colour.” Works like Red, Blue, Yellow I and II do just that - stripping things back to the primaries to explore what happens when you build complexity from clarity. Other pieces, like Intersection, draw on architectural inspiration. In this case, the striking marble grids of Florence’s churches, merging memory with material to form striking, large-scale wall hangings.
Dalia James, Pauta I, 2020. Photo credit: James Champion
In Pauta, she reaches into her studio library, a treasure trove of references spanning art, fashion, and design. A chance flick through Missoni: Art Colour led her to a vivid painting by Mario Nigro, and the rest is woven history. This thoughtful, layered approach is a hallmark of her work and Dalia is as much a researcher as she is an artist.
Dalia James, Untitled III, 2022. Photo credit: James Champion.
Her lens cloth collaboration with eyewear brand Cubitts - part of their charity initiative - turned a section of her piece Untitled I (2022) into a pocket-sized textile for glasses-wearers everywhere. The colours in that piece came not from a landscape or photograph, but from her imagination. It was a new process for Dalia, and one that produced rich, earthy tones captured in hand-dyed silk and bamboo yarns.
The collaboration benefitted Chineke! Foundation, an organisation championing Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians - a cause that resonates personally. She says, “I have found it very difficult to forge my creative career in the Visual Arts, not just in terms of finding the opportunities and the money required to start my practice but also mentally. It has been hard to stay focused and positive at times creating work that straddles Craft and Fine Art not knowing anybody else who looks like me having forged a similar path. It is so important that young people from underrepresented groups who want to pursue a career in the Arts, see people like themselves in the roles."
Dalia James. Details from the Intersection series, 2020.
Dalia’s accolades include the Cockpit Studios’ New Craftsmen Award and being named a TOAST New Maker, but behind the recognition lies pure grit. She describes 2022 as a blur of sleep deprivation and the challenges of new motherhood. Yet she kept making, kept weaving - pouring colour and care into the world. That determination has paid off. At London Craft Week, her work invites us to pause, look closer, and feel the energy of a maker confidently following a vibrant path.
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Further Information:
Dalia James
Atelier Como
Exhibition Details:
14 May 2025 - 18 May 2025
10:00 - 16:00:
Atelier Como, 6–7 St Mary at Hill, London, EC3R 8EE
London Craft Week
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Image Credits:
Lead Image: Dalia James, Yellow, Red, Blue I (Detail), 2023.