MIRRORED - Collaborative Exhibition

Above : Flyer for Exhibition, half Matt half Holly.

A Collaborative exhibition exploring the bridge between Photography and Textiles. 

I worked with my friend and Photography student Holly Aitchison to create a series of photographs and projections which explore the boundaries between textiles and photography.

We worked with Textiles Prints and photographic research I used in projects previously along with Holly's photographic and digital media skills to make a combined set of projections.

These projections then were projected onto each others torso and face, allowing the projection to interact and be manipulated by our positions and angle.

Some of the projections really allowed myself to visualise in another manor how my prints could interact with the human form.

These were then photographed in the photo studio in high quality, adjusted by ourselves then we shortlisted with photos we would use in the exhibition. After much thought and consideration the photographs were then printed digitally to the size of A1 (roughly the size of 8 A4 pages combined).

The preparation of an exhibition was greatly underestimated by myself however it was certainly worth the work.

Myself within a textile photo combination of stained glass window and a Tiger print.

Holly within a photo I took in Shanghai with her Cat's eyes.

Myself interacting with one of my textiles designs

Falling from a hight.

Wings of Barcelona

Holly within my Textiles Print

Holly within the Tiger Beach.

It's me Matt!! With Mini Matt projected
 on my top. I MUST Make a T-shirt like this

The Exhibition opened on Thursday 13th October at Gray's School of Art with a fantastic 

reception along with wine and nibbles. 

A few photos of the Opening night too below.

The Exhibition is running for a week at Gray's School of Art Aberdeen so be sure to pop by if your near...

Bradford Textiles - Matt Russell Print Designs

For our summer project this year we were given the task of designing a range of designs for our specialism - my specialism being Printing .


For this I began as I usually do, with  a piece of inspirational material and go from there. 
The Inspiration I sourced for this project was an antique 1800's book on the British army in spain, with handwritten notes from a sergeant in Aberdeen and his personal experiences in the war. I wanted to capture the age of the book as well as the texture and rough surface of the book facing which had been damaged not only by age but fire also.


I combined the delicate flowing movement of the text as well as the rough and rugged patten of the book cover along with some of the map patterns, a drawing of the Sergeant himself.

From here I created a Client board and Colour board to keep my designs in line with the market and colour scheme I wanted to target.

Client Board

Colour Board

These are some of the textiles print designs I worked with and developed from this inspirational book. Now I will look at shortlisting these to the top ten and make these paper designs into fabric samples and see which ones come out the most successfully.

Print Designs

These designs will go towards the Bradford Textiles competition once sampled and the design and development process is finalised.


Hopefully I have captured something a little unusual to the ordinary applicants by using this original and one of a kind antique book and the naturally aged book pages hand writing and maps.


The Bradford Textile Society's Prize Schemes, which have been the source of encouragement and inspiration to textile students and practising textile designers, and have helped to stimulate new developments in textile design and construction, and finishing and printing techniques.

The original sponsors, the Society itself and the Wool Record, share the distinction of having presented special prizes for design achievement since the Schemes were established in 1923.
 The Society is also grateful to individual organisations and companies, whose support and encouragement has helped the organising committee to increase the total prize money by a considerable amount over the years. 


In particular it acknowledges the generosity of the Clothworkers Foundation, which has awarded a number of prizes since 1968, the Dyers' Company, Prestigious Textiles Ltd, The Woolmark Company, the British Wool Marketing Board, the Association of Fashion & Textile Courses, Holland & Sherry Ltd and Bradford College.


To find out more about the Bradford Textiles Society CLICK HERE