Valérie Wartelle is a contemporary fibre artist whose main fascination lies within the manipulation of textiles and fibres as an expressive art form. Taking the rural environment as her inspiration, and using wet felting as her primary practice, she explores long-term interests of texture, colour, layering and process to create contemplative and ethereal wall hung pieces. These are highly textured artworks in which cloth is embedded, prints disguised and threads unravelled.

Explorative and experimental work has always been at the heart of Valérie’s creative practice. Recently she has been seeking a more incidental and intuitive expression in larger-scale work and more dynamic mark making. Aware the sheer physicality of the task alone would be demanding, the making is muscular and rhythmic as she executes the steps again and again -place, spray, roll, squeeze, stretch. “It seems repetition nudges me into a meditative space”, she explains. “It invites me to trust myself, and let the haptic connections sinuously paint a new space for the viewer to contemplate.”

Valérie Wartelle is a French-born award-winning artist working and living in West Yorkshire. Her work is held in private collections in Canada, France, Greece, Switzerland, USA, and the UK. Valeriehas been a member ofthe Design-Nation portfolio since 2019.