Artist Bio
Janine Saul
Textile Artist
1997
Janine Saul London based textile printmaker, exploring perceptual thresholds through sustained attention to process and material. Her practice incorporates textile knowledge from both contemporary and ancestral traditions, including field-research in Peru, India, and Japan. She earned a BA with distinction in Textile Design from Chelsea College of Arts at the University of the Arts London in 2019. She completed a six- month exchange at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in 2017.
Her first solo exhibition, She Transient Dance, was at Villa Lena in 2022. She has also installed her work in remote landscapes, including Spirits of the Water in the Palenque jungle, Mexico (2021), and La Madre Amazonas in the Bolivian Amazon (2024). Her work has been in group exhibitions such as Future Stars at The Holy Art Gallery, Athens and London (2023) and The Other Art Fair, London (2024).
Saul has completed residencies at Ohara- Kobo, Kyoto, and Villa Lena, Tuscany. Saatchi Art named her one of its Rising Stars in 2024.
My work is a constant negotiation with the limitations of language. As a child, I wrote naturally from back to front - writing that was only legible in the reflection of a mirror. My mind has always processed the world in reverse. I use printmaking on textiles to translate my thoughts to others because it is a process structured through reversal, where meaning appears through reflection. In a world accelerating toward certainty, I use this process to slow down and make space for deliberate uncertainty. My prints inhabit this disorientation as a perceptual threshold to explore, rather than a deficit to endure.
My practice unfolds in respect for historical textile traditions, honouring them as living knowledge and working with their material intelligence with care in the present. Textiles have an enduring capacity to carry memory, meaning, and perceptual resonance through fibre, stain, and touch. In working with them, what begins as a personal introspection opens into shared perception: contradiction remains, but it no longer disrupts. It gathers. It steadies, it connects. Coherence appears through presence rather than resolution.
Through texture, layering, and abstraction in the screen-printing process, I engage tensions between the screen and fabric. This tension activates a threshold between control and intuition, movement and isolation, and surface and depth. These oppositions remain active, held in suspension, allowing tensions to unfold between the surface and the screen until they begin to gather into coherence.
Layering, for me, is a central method, allowing the past and present to coexist in a process that conceals and reveals in turns. I use it to create spaces where uncertainty is held long enough to shape form and structure. I understand time as something to be held rather than hurried, and experiences as something to be carried rather than erased. My work honours slowness, visible process, and the whispered authority of marks shaped through living. What begins as a personal engagement with material, through sustained attention, becomes a threshold of perceptual clarity. Inviting the viewer to encounter a subtle alignment between their internal response and material presence.
My work draws from hands-on research in Japan, Peru, and India. This taught me to develop natural pigments that I use to reflect memory, patience, and natural processes. I combine these dyeing practices with self-developed screen-printing techniques, moving between bold gestures and delicate details. Silk, paper, and pigment interact through tactile processes, registering pressure, impression, and repetition. The material resists and responds, producing friction that shapes each mark. Texture accumulates through these encounters, catching light and holding the traces of heat, water, and wind.
I activate each technique to invite perceptual awareness, rather than interpretation, using process and material to direct attention. Subtle shifts in surface, colour, and texture require viewers to slow down. As attention deepens, I want the boundary between the observer and the observed to soften. I aim to create a space where the viewer becomes fully present in the unfolding unknown.
Artist Statement
CV
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2016 - 2019
BA Textile Design, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL London
First Class Hons
2017
Exchange Programme at Fashion Institute of Technology New York
GPA 5.0
2015 - 2016
Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, Camberwell College, UAL London
Distinction
-
Solo Exhibitions
2022
She Transient Dance, Villa Lena Rain Room, Tuscany
2021
Spirits of The Water, (collaboration with landscape artist Philippe Fleury), Mexico Palenque
Impermanence of the Physical, Hackney Bridge, London
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2024
The Other Art Fair, The Truman Brewery, London
2023
Future Stars, Holy Art Gallery, London
Future Stars (Virtual), Holy Art Gallery, Athens
2022
Spirits of The Water, in collaboration with La Presencia, Mexico Oaxaca
2021
Facade, Holy Art Gallery, London
In The Wild, King House Gallery, London
2019
Play, Nike, Portland, Oregon
Sustainable shoe design project in collaboration with Nike, resulting in an exhibition at the Nike Headquarters in Portland, Oregon
Summer Exhibition, Chelsea College of Arts, London
2018
Light Pressure, Exhibited at Premier Vision Paris
2017
Falling Seasons, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York
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2022
Marciaso, self-directed artist residency, Apuan Alps, Italy
Villa Lena, artist residency, Tuscany
2018
Oharah-Kobu, residency in natural dying, Japan
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2021
Wells Art Contemporary
Shortlisted for Emerging Artist of the Year
2018
Handu
Nominated by TED as one of the leading projects in a brief set to explore TED 10 Sustainability Design Principles2021
Wells Art Contemporary
Shortlisted for Emerging Artist of the Year
2018
Handu
Nominated by TED as one of the leading projects in a brief set to explore TED 10 Sustainability Design Principles
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2023
The Eternal Rose, mural project for Marciaso, Apuan Alps, Italy. Restoring abandoned spaces.
Wilka Hampi, developing conscious creative, educational spaces and self-sufficiency living, Sacred Valley Peru.
Valle De Los Cóndores, developing artist residency spaces, educational workshop spaces, agricultural systems and natural materials for self-sufficient living. Bolivia.
Weaving Tropical Fibres, investigation into tropical natural materials for potentiality in interior spatial design. Brazil.
2022
Resin Research, using resin collected in Turkey to discover potentiality in its medicinal properties and sustainable usage. Turkey
Bring The Noise, collaborative natural material installation project for Bring The Noise, France
Natural Plant Preservation, together with the tribe of Wirrarikas investigating the natural plants of the Dessert and how to preserve them. Mexico
2021
Guest Lecturer UAL, Series of personal practice lectures at UAL.
IntoArt, 12-week screen-printing live project in collaboration with IntoArt, LAB E20 & Copeland Gallery
Mothership Campaign, Created a series of 3 x 6 Meter flags for the Climate Activist Group displayed at Wilderness Festival, Brainchild Festival, and Wye Valley, Wales
Triptych, collective of informal creative art educators running sessions for all level student. From GCSE, A-Level to Higher Education.
2020
Bingo Furry Set Design, Installation used for the set of a music video
Bananarama Set Design, 2 x 10 Meter Calico Prints made for the set design for Bananrama
Jeep Launch, Live Print Event in collaboration with 3rd Rail Print Space
Converse Launch, Live Print Event in collaboration with 3rd Rail Print Space
Playstation Launch, Live Print Event in collaboration with 3rd Rail Print Space
2019
Zara Kids, Sustainability brief for Zara Kids. Spain.
2018
Mr Hiroykui Shindo, Indigo dying research project with Master Mr Hiroykui Shindo. Japan.