Rowan Mersh-London Textile Designer

Installation or wearable garments? 

By: Laura Daza

My critical perspective towards designers was first inspired by Rowan Mersh’s work.  A London-based textile and conceptual artist, trained at the Mixed Media Textiles School of the Royal Collage of Arts, developed a unique design aesthetic of developing avant-garde textiles. By breaking boundaries, Mersh was able to create and manipulate textiles in an unconceivable way, through installations and wearable accessories.

Rowan Mersh is a textile designer and sculptor, who explores concepts and techniques, through body and space performances.  His way of designing includes concepts, such as repetition, rotation, radiation and gradation, using contrasts of black and white stripes, and generating optical illusions of depth and movement. His ability to create 3D Textile sculptures is reflected in his 2007 installation Future Landscapes (Extract). A series of twelve wall-based canvases (90cm x 90cm) created by using a self-developed technique to permanently transform any fabric, into a shape. I belive that Mersh is not a designer or artist, but is a passionate human being who uses his capacities and dreams, to generate sensations for his audience.

His work has been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum as an important part of their permanent collection.

For more information visit www.romanmersh.com