Composition (Study), Theo Mendez, gouache on canvas, 1965

 

 

Theo Mendez was a prolific London-based artist and textile designer. His main professional role was Head of Textiles at Camberwell School of Art during the 1970s and 80s (having taught and studied there since the 1950s).  However, his incessant drive to create and synthesize commercial textile design with fine art was a key theoretical framework that led him to create scores of paintings for textiles and textiles that might have been paintings from the 1960s onwards.

His work represents a mesmerizing and seductive dialogue between fine art and textile design and, as such, he becomes a central figure in The Geometrics: Volume 2. He represents The Geometrics’ reach to their historical and contextual past and the binary geometrics of British 1960s fine art and fashion that remind us of Bridget Riley and Mary Quant.  This reaching back into western history to Modernist principles and creative expression forms a central axis from which The Geometrics: Volume 2 finds and builds its narrative and context.

For further details of Mendez’s work and inspiration see The Geometrics: Volume 2.