‘Fungi to Flowers’ transforms the Tett Centre into a textile garden

The worlds of art, fabric, and nature intertwine at the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in one new exhibit.

Running from Nov. 8 to 16 at the Tett, Fungi to Flowers brings together Kingston fibre artists Linda Coulter and Phillida Hargreaves for a joint exhibition celebrating texture and nature.

The show pairs two distinct but complementary series: Coulter’s Promise of Spring, a collection blooming with floral forms and vibrant energy, and Hargreaves’s fungi-inspired works exploring the beauty of decay. Together, their pieces form a conversation about growth, transformation, and artistry that emerges from the natural world.

Walking into the space, viewers are immediately presented with dozens of works adorning the gallery walls. What might look like paintings at first are revealed to actually be intricately crafted textile depictions of flora, fungi, and lichen upon further inspection. While the majority of the space is decorated with delicately crafted and colourful wall-mounted works on canvas, several sculptural pieces are featured in the exhibition as well.

Coulter’s pieces Upcycled men’s blue silk ties bowl and Upcycled men’s red wool ties bowl, for example, made entirely from old neckties, are visually striking and conceptually resonant. Hargreaves’s Spore Packages, are organic and colourful sculptures hanging from the ceiling, which feel almost alive. Both pieces punctuate the exhibition by adding another dimension to the experience, making it truly feel like you are walking through a magic garden come to life in textile form.

For Coulter, Fungi to Flowers marks another step in a lifelong relationship with fabric. “I’ve been playing with fabrics most of my life,” she said in an interview with The Journal. “I started off sewing my own clothing in high school, making things for the home, and every step of the way someone would come along with another idea and I’d think, ‘Oh, that’s fascinating,’ and move on from there.”

Her curiosity led her into textile art in the early ‘90s, where she began “combining [her] skills and turning that love of fabric into art.” The Promise of Spring series specifically began as a creative experiment.

“Usually people jelly print on paper, but I started playing with it on fabric,” Coulter said. “I created some fabric that almost looked like pottery, so then I started cutting out all these pots, and I thought, well, now I need to put flowers in them.”

The series grew organically from that moment. “I called it Promise of Spring because it was a November show I was working toward,” she explained. “I thought it would brighten up the time, because in November, everybody’s fishing for a bit of sunshine.”

Her collaboration with Hargreaves stemmed from a shared vision. “We’re both members of the Kingston Fibre Artistsgroup,” Coulter said. “We were each independently developing bodies of work, mine with flowers and hers with fungi. About three years ago, we thought, why not combine them into one show? It worked so well the first time that we decided to do it again.”

Though they work independently, their work blends together beautifully. “We don’t collaborate on the individual pieces,” Coulter said. “But putting our two series together gives viewers a sense of how our ideas evolve side by side. You can see development, continuity, and difference all in one space.”

Coulter hopes audiences come away with a new appreciation for textiles as fine art. “We love it when people walk in and say, ‘Oh my God, I’ve never seen textiles used this way,’” she said.

Fungi to Flowers invites viewers to slow down and notice how art, like nature, grows into something beautiful.