Why I Use Fabric to Paint the Sea

For nearly twenty years, I worked in the fashion industry as a retail buyer.

My world was fabric. Production. Texture. Surface. Construction. I understood how cloth moved, how it behaved under pressure, how it stretched, frayed, softened and held memory.

I also saw, firsthand, the scale of overproduction. The excess. The waste. The pace at which materials were created and discarded. When I left that world and returned to painting, I didn’t consciously plan to use fabric in my work. It happened instinctively. I began layering cloth into paint, embedding fibres into the surface of the canvas. Offcuts. Discarded textiles. Frayed edges.

Without realising it, I was bringing my past into my present.

Today, I use reclaimed fabric, ghost net fragments, surfboard fibreglass offcuts and found coastal materials to create textured seascapes.

Man-made materials. Industrial fibres. Repurposed cloth. All used to portray something entirely organic - water.

The sea is fluid, soft, constantly shifting. Fabric is constructed, woven, manufactured. There’s a tension in that contrast that fascinates me.

To me, cloth and landscape are deeply connected. Both are shaped by pressure. By time. By repetition. Waves erode rock. Hands wear down denim. Salt stiffens fibre. Sunlight fades colour.

Texture becomes a record of experience.

There is something quietly powerful about taking the remnants of human production and transforming them into a landscape of stillness. About using what was once part of overconsumption to reflect nature back to us.

My paintings aren’t just visual representations of the coastline. They are layered surfaces that hold contradiction - industry and ocean, structure and softness, human impact and natural rhythm.

And perhaps that’s why they resonate.

Collectors often tell me they feel a sense of calm when they stand in front of the work. I think that calm comes from more than colour. It comes from depth. From material. From the subtle story held in the surface.

The sea has always been a place of regulation for me, a place where the nervous system softens and the shoulders drop. Through this process, I’m exploring how texture can hold that same sense of grounded stillness within an interior space.

What was once industrial becomes meditative.

What was once discarded becomes meaningful.

That transformation is at the heart of my practice.

If you’re interested in commissioning a piece that captures a coastline meaningful to you, layered with reclaimed materials and personal story - I’d love to hear from you.

Gemma

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