Dalia James weaves together Italian architecture and Bauhaus geometry

‘I’m very old school,’ the weaver Dalia James tells me, speaking from the Walthamstow studio where the born-and-bred east Londoner has worked for the past year. ‘I don’t often use Photoshop or any of those Adobe programmes. I do everything on paper – I like using watercolours to plan and explore which colours I’m going to use.’ This analogue approach extends to James’ influences: early 20th-century Bauhaus designs have a clear connection with the glorious geometric weavings she is fast becoming known for.

‘The Bauhaus is always there in my work,’ she says of her affinity with the mid-century German art school and its tutors. ‘Artists like Josef Albers and Paul Klee have had more influence on me than anyone else – it’s their use of colour theory.’ At first, it was their chromatic approach that made a deep mark. James studied an art foundation course at Camberwell College of Arts, followed by a BA in Textile Design at Loughborough University, during which she encountered a loom for the first time. ‘It was only later, once I’d actually started weaving, that I found out about weavers at the Bauhaus like Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl.’

A turning point came in 2019, when she took part in the Crafts Council’s Hothouse programme. A piece of advice gave James the confidence to focus primarily on making wall-based artworks rather than cushions and throws. ‘The cohort leader, Caroline Jackman, kept telling me to “just do it”. I’m living by that philosophy now – saying yes and just seeing what happens.’

Architecture is a recurring inspiration for James, much as it was for the Bauhauslers. The long, column-like wall panels of handwoven silk and bamboo that she created for last year’s Artefact art fair took their cues from the pink, green and white marble facade of Florence Cathedral. ‘I saw the geometric lines that wrap around the cathedral, saw the colours, and thought, “I’ve got to do something”. I chose tonal variations of the pinks and greens, staying within its sphere.’

As we speak, she has just completed an architecture-inspired commission for the Ruskin Library and Museum in Lancashire, which houses the Victorian critic and artist John Ruskin’s collection. ‘Ruskin loved and studied Venice, and though I couldn’t do a research trip to the city, I used the facades of its buildings as a colour reference.’ The outcome is a pair of metre-high panels in orange-red hues, created with yarns she dyed herself using natural materials such as turmeric, saffron and cochineal. ‘Even though I use very small amounts of yarn and dye, I am aware that the fashion and textile industry is one of the worst polluters in the world,’ she says. ‘I’d like to do my bit.’

At university, James focused on silk yarns, but since graduating has also explored bamboo and seacell – a blend of lyocell and seaweed (‘it has a lovely sheen and dyes beautifully’). Next on her list to try is pineapple bast, a fibre made from the leaf of the plant. She’ll have to fit this experimentation around a busy schedule: besides being a new mother, she also has a string of private commissions over the coming months.

Last year, James was awarded an Arts Council ‘Developing your Creative Practice’ grant, earmarked in part for experimenting with natural dyes. ‘I’m not yet getting the depth of shades I’m used to – where I could use, say, 0.3 grammes of a synthetic dye, I might need two or three grammes of turmeric, to get a very dark yellow – so there’s still a lot of experimenting to do.’ She adds: ‘In the future, I’ll probably use a mix of natural and synthetic.’