In Loving Memory
An Exhibition by Caitlin Dawkes
Opening Night: Friday 21st August (6pm - 7pm)
Exhibition: Tuesday 18th – Sunday 23rd August 2026, Open: 12pm - 5pm / Sun 1pm - 4pm
In Loving Memory brings together a series of textile works made in response to grief, memory, and the experience of continuing to exist after the loss of a loved one. Using familiar domestic materials and labour-intensive textile processes, the works explore how ordinary objects become entangled with remembrance, taking on new emotional significance over time.
Developed through slow, repetitive acts of weaving, stitching, wrapping, and assembling, each sculpture reflects the passing of time and the quiet persistence of memory. Some works emerge from personal experiences of bereavement, while others are shaped through the contributions of visitors, allowing individual memories to become part of a shared act of remembrance.
Rather than presenting grief as a single moment, the exhibition considers how it settles into everyday life through the spaces we inhabit, the objects we keep, and the rituals we return to. Fragments of home, accumulations of handmade forms, and collective acts of making become ways of carrying memory forward. Together, these works invite visitors to pause, reflect, and consider the enduring presence of those we continue to carry with us.
Caitlin Dawkes is a visual artist based in North Somerset, working primarily with textiles and fibres to create tactile soft sculptures that challenge how audiences interact with art. Drawn to soft materials such as yarn and fleece, Dawkes finds comfort in the rhythmic, repetitive processes of fibre art and needlework which offer a cathartic way of making. A key thread within their practice is the exploration of art as a site of comfort and consolation, both for the artist and those who engage with their work. Dawkes uses their practice as a therapeutic tool to shift melancholic thoughts of isolation and absence into playful, curious forms that spark joy. In a way, the sculptural works often act as attempts to fill voids and embody complex feelings of saudade as the artist navigates grief. Within their practice, Dawkes has enjoyed experimenting with bold colour palettes that attract and startle audiences. Dawkes is particularly interested in the tension between comfort and discomfort, attraction and repulsion, softness and weight and how these opposing forces can coexist through textile-based sculpture.
Dawkes graduated from Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, UAL (2022) with a First Class Honours and has since exhibited works in London and across the South West.
Caitlin Dawkes is recipient of the Fringe Arts Bath (FaB) Bath Open Art Prize 2025 gallery award, comprising a studio residency and a supported solo exhibition sponsored by 44AD’s Charity.