Gladys Paulus - Textile Artist 

Gladys Paulus uses the ancient medium of felt to create work which hints at a loss of a sense of sacredness in this world.

Paulus's work straddles the worlds of fine arts and crafts, managing to find a space entirely of its own, and pushing the boundaries of the medium of felt in doing so.

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Her practice of Insight meditation feeds and inform her arts practice; a process of inquiry which often stems from personal questions around her ancestry and her identity as a bi-racial woman.

Born (1973) and raised in the Netherlands, Paulus comes from a family of artists and crafts folk. She studied drawing and painting at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Utrecht before moving to the UK in 1995, where she started exploring traditional crafts. Handmade felt remains her current medium of choice, although she increasingly incorporates a range of other materials into her work.

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Paulus is a visiting tutor at many specialist textile venues, where she teaches master classes in a wide range of techniques. Though based in Somerset, England, she has taught across the UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

She is an exhibiting member of the 62 Group of textile artists and is on the Crafts Councils Selected Index of Makers.

Felt is a unique, non-woven textile made from wool fibres. The art of felt making predates woven cloth and is thought to date back to Neolithic time. Felt making is an ancient and alchemical process during which wool fibres shrink and come together to form a dense mat when subjected to heat, humidity, friction and a change of alkalinity. The felt can be shaped and sculpted into 3-dimensional forms as it shrinks.