Annie Bielecka
Wivenhoe Artist Maker/Textile Designer Inspired by Landscapes and the Sea
Added by Pat Marsden
Annie Bielecka (nee Jones) is an artist maker/textile designer born and raised in a Welsh community, Criccieth, on the Cambrian Coast of Gwynedd. She Is the daughter of Richard Jones of Porthmadog, a lifelong seaman, and Mary Hart. Her great grandmother helped launch lifeboats and some of her family were fisherfolk, seafarers, milliners, dressmakers.
She has lived in Wivenhoe since 1977 and was a student at the University of Essex, Ruskin College, Oxford and Colchester School of Art & Design.
Her work reflects her love of the sea and the timelessness of landscape. There are glimpses from afar of some real, some imaginary lands as seen from the ocean. There is a thread of ‘hiraeth’ (Welsh longing for home) woven into her work.
She uses highly decorative techniques crossing the boundary between fine and applied art. Her work includes paintings, church hangings and robes, costumes, framed land and seascapes. She uses fabrics that are difficult to combine, silk, satins and metallic fibres that reflect light and animate the surface. Strong colours inspire her, textures and raw edges give depth and dimension. Some materials used are recycled from costumes, the smallest pieces shaped into shoals of gleaming tropical fish.
Her extensive catalogue of work includes :
1996 – 2000 Mad Dogs & Englishmen Theatre Company UK Tours
Design and costume
Comedy of Errors/ Taming of the Shrew/Midsummer Nights Dream
Black Shuck/Into the Light/Colllector of Women
1998 “The Sea” and “All that Jazz” Digby Gallery/Hay Gallery, Colchester.
1999 “Mother Goose” Mercury Theatre, Colchester.
2001 “Art on a Budget” Installation at Zloty Taratzy, Warsaw, Poland
2002 “The Brighter side of Life” exhibition Ottowill Gallery, Suffolk. Michael Young Gallery, Yorkshire.
2003 “Shakespeare’s Women” Costume Design Exhibition (with Martyn Jezerski) at Mercury Theatre, Colchester.
2004 ‘Suffering of Women at a Time of War’ Painting used as design by San Antonio University, Texas, USA and 2005 production of ‘War Music’ by Christopher Logue’s adaptation of Homer’s “Ilyad.”
2005 “Story Tellers Tent” with Eliza Kentridge, Wivenhoe.
2006 ‘Glimpses’ Solo Exhibition, Reykjavic City Hall, Iceland
Paintings, framed textiles and large hangings.
2007 Icelandic Arts Council invited as Visiting Artist working with textile Designer Sigrun Lara Shanko.
2007 Commission. Altar Frontal and Pulpit hangings/stoles
St. Mary the Virgin Church, Wivenhoe.
2008. “Two Wivenhoe Artists” Exhibition – with James Dodds
Nottage Maritime Institute, Wivenhoe.
2009 Commission, New York. Embroidered Chasuble
St. John the Divine Cathedral, Manhattan.
2010 – 2016 Colchester Art Society Open Exhibitions at the Minories and Firstsite.
2012 /2016 Embroiderers Guild Group Projects
London Cultural Olympics. “Norway” exhibitor.
St.Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.
Ickworth House, National Trust.
Capability Brown 300th Anniversary
Mayoral Banner for Colchester Town Hall.
I regularly participate in the annual autumn Colchester Open Studios – Studio 28 Collective (with Charlotte Bernays and Fiona Mason.)
2003 – 2016 Annual Over the Sofa Exhibition at Wivenhoe Bookshop.
I show new work with the Colchester Art Society at the Minories and Firstsite Open Exhibitions.
To see more of my work please visit http://www.anniebielecka.co.uk
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