Biography

Gladys Paulus is a Dutch-Indonesian artist working with sheep's wool using traditional wet-felting methods. From her studio in Somerset, England, she creates sculptures and installations about belonging, memory, care and the spaces we inhabit between cultures, histories and identities.

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Drawing on her family's history of forced migration, her work reflects on what we carry, what we protect, and how materials can hold memory. Through the slow, physical practice of wet felting, she creates works that invite viewers to pause, look closely and reconnect with our shared humanity.

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Gladys exhibits nationally and internationally. Her work is held in the collection of the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam and in private collections in the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada. She is a former exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists and is listed on the Crafts Council's Selected Index of Makers.

Alongside her studio practice, Gladys teaches internationally and writes about art, making and creativity on Substack.

A CV is available on request.

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Artist Statement

Making is an act of attention, and attention itself is a form of care.

I work with sheep's wool using traditional wet-felting methods that have changed little over thousands of years. I am drawn to wool because it is both humble and extraordinary: a material shaped by landscape, labour and touch, capable of holding memory as much as form.

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I know what it is to live between worlds. As a queer person of mixed Dutch-Indonesian heritage, that experience has shaped not only the questions I ask, but the way I make.

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My work begins with making rather than ideas. The slow rhythm of laying wool, rubbing, rolling and shaping asks me to pay close attention - to the material, to my body, and to what gradually reveals itself. Over time, I have come to understand that this attentiveness is not separate from the work; it is the work.

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Much of what I make grows from my family's history of forced migration. I am interested in shelter, belonging, inherited memory, and the quiet ways people protect what matters most. Rather than offering answers, I hope my work creates space for reflection, curiosity and human connection.

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To felt is to connect: thousands of individual fibres become stronger because they can no longer be separated. That simple physical act has become a way of understanding care, community and what holds us together.​​

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Photo reportage & interview by Together&Sunspell October 2017