Tuesday 5-Sunday 20 September, 11.30-5.30 p.m.: Exhibition, Ancient and Modern: A Woven Dialogue at Townhouse

Townhouse Gallery, 5 Fournier St, London E1 6QE, United Kingdom

The gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6 p.m. and on Sundays 11.30 - 5.30 p.m.

Sharon Kearley and Ali Holloway are contemporary textile artists whose practices are rooted in a shared fascination with weaving as both material process and cultural language.

Sharon Kearley is known for her playful and innovative approach to hand weaving, creating works for interiors and exhibition that respond to the emotional and hidden lines within the landscape. Working with natural fibres such as wool and linen, she often begins with walking, researching old maps and forgotten paths, allowing place, memory and the traces of time to shape her woven surfaces. A graduate of the Chelsea School of Art and later the University for the Creative Arts, she is also the author of Woven Textiles: A Designer’s Guide, now widely used in textile education.

Ali Holloway studied woven textiles at Central Saint Martins and has spent more than two decades developing a practice that challenges the formal grid of warp and weft. Working primarily with paper, silk and linen, she uses plant-derived colour and experimental dyeing methods to introduce movement, disruption and subtle shifts in tone. Like Sharon, her work often begins with a walk, exploring how landscapes, both natural and built, are shaped by human presence over time. Together, their practices create a thoughtful dialogue between tradition and experimentation, honouring the ancient language of weaving while extending it into a distinctly contemporary form.

Event Description
Sharon and Ali present Ancient and Modern: A Woven Dialogue, an exhibition staged in the historic Townhouse Spitalfields, a former Huguenot weaver’s house on Fournier Street. Bringing their work into conversation, the exhibition explores the enduring relationship between weaving, landscape and memory.

Through natural fibres, plant dyes and experimental structures, the artists reflect on the timeless act of passing thread through thread, creating cloth as generations of makers have done before them. Set within a building deeply connected to London’s textile history, the exhibition invites visitors to consider weaving not simply as a craft, but as a living link between past and present, and as a continuing language of connection, place and shared human experience.

Event Cancellation Policy
All bookings are non-refundable. However, if you let us know that you are unable to attend an event you have booked at least two weeks before the event, we will open up your place. If we find another participant, you will be offered a credit note.

Visit the Sharon Kearley's Website
Follow Sharon Kearley on Instagram

Visit the Ali Holloway's Website
Follow Ali Holloway on Instagram