Areas of Expertise

Textiles (sewing, stitching)
Machine embroidery (design, digitizing, stitching)
Animation and Embroidermation

Art Education, Workshops, and Lectures

Museum and Gallery preparator

Biography

Caitlin Thompson grew up in rural east-central Alberta and completed her BFA in Sculpture at Red Deer College and The Alberta College of Art + Design (2007). Caitlin moved to Montreal to pursue an MFA in Fibres and Material Practices from Concordia University (2015). She moved back to Alberta to complete the beneficial cycle of journeying and returning. While maintaining a studio practice, Caitlin also works as an arts educator and gallery preparator.

Caitlin has participated in artist residencies at The National Film Board, Est-Nord-Est, Struts Gallery, the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation, and The Ledge Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at The Esker Foundation (Calgary), The Art Gallery of Alberta (Edmonton), Glenbow Museum (Calgary), Red Deer and District Museum, The Art Gallery of Regina, La Centrale (Montreal), dc3 Art Projects (Edmonton), and the Museo Textil de Oaxaca (Mexico). She is the recipient of several grants and has presented her research in fibres, fashion, embroidery, and animation in lectures, workshops, and conferences.

Artist Statement

When I realized that the feeling of embroidering and the feeling of animating are similar, I started working with loops that are present in both textiles and animation. Thinking about their processes, materials, and histories, I found similarities in the repetitive, machine-body labour of embroidery and animation and began to look for ways to work in tandem with these two processes.

I use animation both as a basis for design and as a conceptual action. I draw short, looping animation sequences that regenerate or propel themselves, like flowers blooming and dying, or butterflies and birds forever flying. While I spend hours embroidering these drawings, and sewing together the patchwork of panels, I think about the life cycles that those materials contain.