BIO
Tricia Royal is a Los Angeles-based surface designer, and textile artist.
Tricia’s current body of work includes paper patchwork and textile quilt collages, and contemporary studio quilts, all of which prominently feature secondhand and recycled materials, as well as Tricia’s own hand-printed and painted papers and textiles.
Tricia was the Artist-in-Residence at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles in October-December 2019, and the 2016-2017 Textiles Artist-in-Residence at Lillstreet Art Center, in Chicago, Illinois. She has a BA in Art History from the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville, Florida (2003), and an AAS in Fashion Design from Parsons the New School for Design, in New York City (2006).
Tricia’s work has been displayed at Quiltcon 2015, Quiltcon 2016, Quiltcon 2018, the Watermark Gallery in East Providence, Rhode Island (2016), Lillstreet Gallery (2017) and San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (2019).
Artist STATEMENT
In my practice and pieces, I like to investigate the liminal space between past and present, chaos and control, trash and treasure. I explore matters of taste and trend, the relative value of textiles in a global, throwaway world, and the debate the public perception of the quilt as art or craft.
Questions that inform my practice include: What is “ugly” or “tasteful”? What could choices could I make (via fabric, design, or color choice) that might push the commonly accepted notions of “taste”? What is valuable? What is garbage or useless? Can I produce an end product that succeeds in transcending these notions?
I see markmaking as an expressive, transformative act, a way to claim, reframe, and elevate a previously blank or found textile or scrap of paper. I approach the application of hand-applied geometric surface patterns on fabric or paper in a layered, iterative, and experimental manner, viscerally enjoying the inherent flow, and sense of surprise, serendipity and play.
My current bodies of work include both prints and quilts that nod to the canon of tessellated structures of traditional quilts. I like to experiment with unusual colorways and levels of saturation in color, creating a power clash, with insistent pairings that challenge and excite the eye. I enjoy watching what happens when color shifts and reacts to adjacent or applied color in the process of printing and piecing.
I prefer to utilize secondhand, found or community-sourced/discarded textiles and papers in my work as much as possible. This creates a community-art based dimension to my work; I am having a curatorial conversation with and about the society in which I am a part, via the sorting, selecting and usage of the discards and detritus of my local and global neighborhood. I believe that used textiles retain value in our throwaway society. What is “useless” transforms into a valuable resource. By using these materials as the basis of my art, I hope to challenge and change minds about commonly accepted notions regarding the value of items in our material culture.
PRESS/INTERVIEWS
Artist Spotlight: Tricia Royal - April 19, 2020 - San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles (blog post)
What It’s Like to Be an Artist-In-Residence: My Experience at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles - Dec 3, 2019 - Craft Industry Alliance (blog post)
The Art of Improv: Tricia Royal by Jen Broemel - December 9, 2018 - Jen Broemel (blog post)
Bits and Bobbins: Tricia Royal by Rachel Henry - May 31, 2017 - Surface Design Association - (blog post)
Crafty Planner Podcast: Episode 120: Tricia Royal - August 7, 2017 (podcast)
Quilting Stories Podcast: Tricia Royal, Episode 10 - January 18,2021 (podcast)
PUBLICATIONS
QUILTED: From Pattern to Patchwork - UPPERCASE Encyclopedia of Inspiration, by Janine Vangool - “Tricia Royal”, pages 358-368 (book)
Uppercase Magazine: Issue #46 -July/August/September 2020- Craft: Scrap Happy, Tricia Royal, page 94 (print magazine)