Hand painting silk pieces
I've had a fantastic week working with the international design company 'Kinetika', helping to produce hand painted silk pieces due to be used for costumes for the opening ceremonies of the new London Designer Outlet store in Wembley. Founded in 1997 by talented artist Ali Pretty, Kinetika focuses on designing for community projects, carnival events and outdoor celebrations. With recent accreditations to designing for the Fifa World Cup Opening Ceremony, the 2012 LOGOC Athletes Parade and the Paralympics Closing Ceremony, Kinetika is renown for it's ability to tell a story through large scale spectacles of carnival and performance pieces drawing together professional artists and community involvement.
Ali Pretty has a huge experience in being able to design, deliver and facilitate large scale community projects, working for over 15 years now bringing together various artists and local projects. Ali's enthusiasm, skill and passion for the arts is clear through her commitment and involvement within projects, with her talent and design flare pushing Kinetika forward into continuing success. Guided by the confident hand of project manager Edwina Rigby, who took over in 2012, Kinetika remains strongly focused on working to build relationships within communities, outreaching to a diverse variety of people especially now through schools projects and youth work.
The work this week has all been hand painting into silk pieces that will be made into costumes for the LDO opening ceremonies. Ali's four varying designs had already been waxed onto the sets of twelve costumes, which were made up of skirts, neck and head pieces, and also longer lengths of silk combining all four complex designs which make up a large tower costume had to all be painted. For those who aren't familiar with the process of Batik, the wax acts as a negative barrier against areas that you wish the dye not reach, also allowing a separation between sections of varying colour. During the finishing and fixing processes this wax is then removed therefore leaving the original colour and pattern on the silk.
It's been fantastic seeing this week the work that Kinetika does, learning the processes and realising just how much time and unseen effort goes into producing work of this scale. It's been a pleasure working alongside Ali and all the other artists who have helped this week, which include two other students from the Rose Bruford scenic family, Liz and Sarah.
I urge anyone to take a further look online at the work that Kinetika produces and also at Ali Pretty's current individual projects:
And feel free to join Kinetika at the opening ceremonies at LDO in Wembley which take place 2nd November 2013 (soft launch) and the official launch next April 2014.
All designs and creative content accredited to Kinetika studios and Ali Pretty. Information sourced from Kinetika online.