Pattern Portraits with Lauren Godfrey

In this special bonus episode of Pattern Portraits, Lauren Godfrey takes us behind the scenes whilst working at UCL as Artist in Residence for the Student Community, in Partnership with Students' Union UCL.Lauren ran drawing workshops with UCL students drawing from patterns relating to their research areas and personal histories and then recorded their reflections on pattern as it relates to the courses they are studying from neuroscience to anthropology and biochemical engineering.These drawings were developed into a series of huge backdrops for the Bloomsbury Theatre stage at UCL.Painted on one of only a handful of traditional scenic paint frames in London, the project celebrates and revitalises the art of scenic painting for a new generation.On 2nd October 2026, Lauren Godfrey invites you to experience the magic of the stage as you explore the spectacular hand-painted patterned backdrops created in collaboration with UCL students. With a special event at 6pm bringing the work to life with student performances and conversations in Pattern Portraits Live - get your ticket here!https://www.bloomsburytheatre.com/event/2026/10/pattern-portrait-uclEnjoy this special episode with the students telling the fascinating stories behind their patterns and head to https://www.laurengodfrey.co.uk/ucl200/ to see images from the project and a transcript of the podcast episode.Speakers: Austin, Ruqaiya, Criss, Selma, Hyden, Mahamed, Naoko, Melissa, Matteo, Vish, Maria, Lexi, Abira, Alina, Jazzy, Zimeng, Ian, Abhishek, Anan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this bonus episode of Pattern Portraits celebrating 150 Years of LIBERTY with author and historian Kassia St Clair.Geek out with us about Liberty as Lauren Godfrey chats with Kassia St Clair about 'Liberty' as an adjective, getting lost in summer garden florals and Oscar Wilde’s hot take on the icon that is Liberty.Kassia St Clair is the UK’s best selling historian under 40, selling hundreds of thousands of books globally, you might know her best for her brilliant book The Secret Lives of Colour in which she profiles the remarkable untold histories of pigments, inks and hues through time or perhaps her sumptuous book, The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History, telling of the depths to which our lives are intertwined with fabric and textiles, a topic I’m particularly passionate about here at Pattern Portraits!In celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Liberty, Kassia has written a stunning new book titled ‘LIBERTY - Design, Pattern, Colour’, presenting the very latest examples of Liberty Design alongside prints, drawings and samples from the company’s outstanding archive, telling an inspiring, century long story of manufacturing quality and design excellence.In Kassia’s characteristically poetic and lyrical style, she brings to life the stories of well loved and brand new Liberty patterns alike, told through chapters marking the key pillars of Liberty design, the book is a full colour celebration of one of the most unique and remarkable design houses of our time. Launching on 15th May 2025, the book is published by Thames and Hudson and is widely available to buy now!Kassia has chosen a wonderful cross section of Liberty patterns that feature in the book and span the lifetime of Liberty from the late 19th Century design ‘Hera’, via classic Liberty floral ‘Betsy’ (1933), to two very different designs from the sixties; Althea McNish’s undulating ‘Hula Hula’ and Bernard Nevill’s geometric ‘Corbusier’ and finally bang up to date with illustrator Hattie Stewart’s playful ‘Hattie Park’ from 2022.You can see all of Kassia’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Maybe Betsy’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Kassia’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to this BONUS episode of Pattern Portraits on the occasion of Bethan Laura Wood’s solo exhibition at The Design Museum in London!Step into the wiggle world of designer Bethan Laura Wood as she chats with Lauren Godfrey about hidden versus mirrored repeats, the similarities between kaleidoscopes and iPhones and pattern in three dimensions.Known for her joyful and maximalist approach to design, Bethan Laura Wood has turned her hand to furniture, lighting, rugs and even handbags. Enhancing all she does with a friendly wiggle, a playful pattern and an immaculate eye for colour.Bethan has collaborated with many companies including Hermes, Perrier-Jouet champagne and fine porcelain manufacturers, Rosenthal. She has work in collections worldwide including at the V&A and The Design Museum in London.Bethan has chosen a veritable party of patterns including an Otomi embroidery from Mexico, a quilt from Pakistan, a book matched section of veneer made by Bethan, a vibrant Luntaya Acheik from Myanmar and a metallic zig zag pattern (origin unknown).You can see all of Bethan’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘The Wiggle World’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Bethan’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 17 of Pattern Portraits!Lauren Godfrey chats with artist David Batchelor, about the legacy of the Bauhaus, gilding tortoises and pattern as a cardinal sin.David Batchelor is an artist well known for his sculptural and light based work that explores his experience of colour within a modern urban environment, and historical conceptions of colour within Western culture. David has exhibited worldwide with recent solo exhibitions in Sao Paolo, London and Edinburgh. He has delivered large scale commissions for London St Pancras Station and Art on the Underground. His book Chromophobia was published in 2000 and is a staple of art school reading lists worldwide.David’s work delights in colour and shape, playing with the edges, the reflections and the shadows, drawing attention to the underside, the reverse or the back of a sculptural form, testing and flexing the parameters of our relationship to colour and the myriad ways we experience it.David and I met earlier this year when I was tasked with making a series of beaded works on his behalf for his solo exhibition at Cecilia Brunson Projects in London. Though I was already a fan of his work, upon visiting his studio I discovered a cocoon of colour and a party of patterned references beyond what I could have imagined. We bonded over a shared love of colour charts for zips and getting giddy about chains dripping with perspex swatches!David has chosen a delicious selection of patterns with a global reach including a Mondrian painting (Composition with Grid IX) from 1919, an Anni Albers work on paper from 1967, a 1965 quilt by Sue Willie Seltzer of the Gee’s Bend quilt makers and a Zulu beadwork date unknown. You can see all of David’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Purple Punctuation’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany David’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 16 of Pattern Portraits!Lauren Godfrey chats with artist Zadie Xa, about alchemy and conjuring through pattern, oddness over evenness and Korean Folklore.Zadie Xa is an artist working across painting, sculpture and performance with recent presentations at Thaddeus Ropac in Paris, Hauser and Wirth in LA and The Whitechapel Gallery in London. Originally from Vancouver, Canada, Zadie explores notions of homeland and diaspora through the metaphor of water and interspecies communication. Zadie has an MA in painting from The Royal College of Art and a BFA from The Emily Carr Institute of Design in Vancouver.Her work often takes the form of textile constructions resembling garments or kimonos, heavily worked with quilting, appliqué and complex structural elements featuring recurring motifs such as the conch shell, the Yin Yang symbol, knives and kimchi. Performances have featured huge Orca whales and costumes sewn from bleach dyed denim in aqueous patterns of undulating water.I am totally entranced by Zadie’s work and the way that pattern weaves its way into every element whether it’s a vast patchwork shelter, housing delicately rendered paintings or a gown hanging from the ceiling, poised with a pair of platform shoes resembling cabbages.Zadie has chosen a vibrant patchwork of patterns including a Korean Bojagi wrapping (date unknown), Sonia Delaunay’s ‘Simultaneous Dress’ from 1913, a pattern of her own - Kimchi Rites and Kitchen Rituals, 2022, a Christopher Kane flower stamped dress from Spring/Summer 2012 and a Mori Yuzan wave drawing circa 1903.You can see all of Zadie’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Magic Motif’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Zadie’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.ukImage of Zadie Xa by Benedict JohnsonReferences:Gee’s Bend Quilt MakersLegacy Russell The New Bend Exhibition at Hauser and Wirth Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 15 of Pattern Portraits!Lauren Godfrey chats with artist Navine G Dossos, about wearing painting, pattern as lexicon and the connections between geometry and philosophy.This episode was recorded on the occasion of her solo exhibition ‘Riviera’ at Devonshire Collective’s VOLT gallery in Eastbourne.Navine is an artist living between London and Aegina in Greece working predominantly in painting and increasingly in the public realm. She has a keen interest in pattern and through her work explores geometric abstraction, merging traditions coming from Islamic art with the algorithmic nature of the interconnected world we live in.Navine studied History of Art at Cambridge University, Arabic at Kuwait University, Islamic Art at the Prince’s School of Traditional Art in London, and holds an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design.Her exhibition at Volt is a commission led by Towner Eastbourne in collaboration with Devonshire Collective and presents a new collaboratively designed patterned textile featuring a language of symbols developed from the surrounding area of Eastbourne and the people that live there. The textile is available for free for visitors to take a 2 metre length with which to make a garment or furnishing, thus disseminating the pattern across the town, country and potentially the globe. A truly public artwork it also manifests as a series of awnings on nearby shopfronts, peppering the town with pattern.Navine has chosen a beautiful palette of patterns including a Raoul Dufy textile from 1920, an Islamic Geometric pattern, A Japanese wave pattern, the Photoshop transparency grid and two patterns by the Bloomsbury Group; ’Pamela’ by Vanessa Bell / Duncan Grant and ‘West Wind’ by Duncan Grant.You can see all of Navine’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Monumental Intimacy’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Navine’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.ukReferences:Agnes MartinCharleston House Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 14 of Pattern Portraits!Lauren Godfrey chats with Romy St Clair, one half of the coolest florists in London, SAGE flowers, about collaboration, the similarities between flowers and clubbing and being a recovering minimalist.Together with Iona Mathieson, Romy has grown a phenomenal creative business, making playful bouquets and incredible floral installations. Storming onto the scene only a few years ago with a tiny budget and a few stems in a carpark in Peckham they have since collaborated with brands including Gucci, Fenty, Frieze and Nike to name but a handful. They set up an initiative called FutureFlowers which offers funded placements to diversify and decolonise floristry and they have written a book called The Art of Starting in which they share their secrets to success.Not only are the SAGE girls amazing businesswomen and florists but also impeccable dressers and bring pattern and fun into all they do! Romy has chosen a beautiful selection of sentimental patterns including a fiery Louisa Ballou dress worn for their book launch, a monogrammed Ralph Lauren hoodie belonging to her little boy, a Chunni she wore for her engagement party, an inherited sari and the happiest flower bag for Louis Vuitton by Takashi Murakami.You can see all of Romy’s patterns and more now on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Flowers This Way' - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Romy’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 13 of Pattern Portraits! Lauren Godfrey chats with artist Madeleine Pledge about stripes as borders, patterns as graphs and Virginia Woolf’s concept of frock consciousness. Madeleine Pledge is an artist working sculpturally, employing a myriad of processes including knitting, sewing, casting, ceramics and printmaking. Her work stretches and contorts, leaves a physical impression, can be worn or perhaps has been. It wraps itself around and loops through, balancing and poising. Her work revels in material elements of fashion and from the history of design, reworking and reinterpreting them as a means to understand systems of production, power and authorship. Madeleine’s take on pattern is a really broad and conceptual one, the patterns she has chosen are closely linked with her work and include childhood polkadot dungarees, a stretch knit stripe from a photograph by artist Sylvie Fleury, a pair of op art and binary code inspired balaclavas made by Madeleine after the artist Rosemarie Trockel, zig zag stripes by Missoni, and a trio of striped knitted garments by JW Anderson. You can see all of Madeleine’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Maximum Baggage’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Madeleine’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.ukReferences: Christine Keeler chair https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76201/the-keeler-chair-chair-unknown/Jade Monserrat https://www.bosseandbaum.com/artists/jade-montserrat/Ann Anlin Cheng - Second Skin, Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface https://global.oup.com/academic/product/second-skin-9780197748381?cc=gb&lang=en&Charlie Porter - Bring No Clothes https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453043/bring-no-clothes-by-porter-charlie/9781802061147Bridget Riley - original article from 1965 - https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/bridget-riley-perception-is-the-medium-1965-12638/Alice Channer https://alicechanner.com/Weaponised Glamour at Case Study Project Space - https://www.madeleinepledge.com/weaponized-glamourSuperstructure (public image), 2023 at Eastbourne ALIVE https://www.madeleinepledge.com/superstructure-public-imageStretch, Flatlands Projects https://www.madeleinepledge.com/stretchIsa Genzken’s jacket https://www.madeleinepledge.com/the-weather-gardenSarah Shepherd - knitter of the balaclavas https://www.sarahshepherd.com/Madeleine’s Pictures for Palestine print https://www.picturesforpalestine.com/photographs/madeleine-pledge Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lauren Godfrey chats with art historian and curator Dr Zoé Whitley about pattern as rebellion, making clothes with her grandmother and channelling her favourite musicians through patterns.Zoé is director of the well loved Chisenhale Gallery, a gem in the London gallery scene as a space that champions creativity and helps facilitate artists making new work on a grand scale. Before joining Chisenhale in 2020, she worked on exhibitions, research and collections at The Hayward, The V and A, and the TATE where she co curated the exhibition Soul of A Nation: Art In The Age of Black Power which went on to tour internationally. She also curated Cathy Wilkes’ presentation at the 2019 British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and was a Turner Prize judge in 2021. Zoe undertook a Masters in History of Design at the Royal College of Art alongside the V and A, focusing on representations of Blackness in Vogue Magazine in the UK, US and France.Zoé has chosen a veritable feast of pattern including striped sweatpants from Erykah Badu’s world market, a Vlisco Dutch Wax hall of fame, A Stella Jean dress with typewriters all over it, a floral Versace monogram silk, a Moroccan Boucheruite rug and a Viviers Studio ostrich claw napkin! You can see all of Zoé’s patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcast‘Caszh With Zhuzh’ - The PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Zoé’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.ukReferences:Badu world marketGetty internshipKaye Spilker / Sharon Takeda - Curator / Head of Costume at Textiles at LACMARudi Gernreich Pubikini 1985Claire McCardellGilbert AdrianTom Ford Gucci jeansVlisco - dutch waxCauleen SmithYinka Shonibare - Dysfunctional Family (1999) / Sir Foster Cunliffe, Playing (2007)Njideka Akunyili CrosbyStella JeanNAFADLisa Left Eye Lopes - Hat 2 Da BackHouse Party - Kid n play pool ball pyjamasLisanne ViviersAnthea Hamilton Loewe wallpaper Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Episode 11 of Pattern Portraits! Lauren Godfrey chats with artist and filmmaker Michelle Williams Gamaker about costume as a nonverbal communicator in film, pattern stopping her in her tracks and the double echo of intergenerational clothes swapping. Michelle is an artist known for her ambitious films that enact fictional revenge, placing marginalised voices at the centre of the narrative. Her epic film work ‘Theives’ was presented at South London Gallery in 2023, Dundee Contemporary Arts and Bluecoat in Liverpool in 2024. Michelle’s work responds to films watched during childhood, unpacked and seen anew over time, which raise important conversations about race, representation, identity and agency. Michelle’s work has won many awards including jointly winning the Jarman Award in 2020. Pattern and colour are intrinsic in her world from costumes and sets to the clothes Michelle wears herself. A pair of her striped boots have even been immortalised in the work of another artist, Madeline Pledge who I am also interviewing this season! Michelle has chosen some very special patterns, a polkadot and houndstooth from C&A passed down from her mum, a Kantha quilt kimono and Shalwar kameez adapted for wearing at her exhibition opening, a satin dress thrifted in Amsterdam and my personal favourite, an epic Paisley crossed with tiger print shirt by Pencaldi and B!You can see all of Michelle's patterns and more on instagram @patternportraitspodcastThe PATTERN PORTRAIT print artwork to accompany Michelle’s interview and featuring the patterns we discuss is available to buy now at www.laurengodfrey.co.ukhttps://www.instagram.com/m.williams.gamaker/References: Thief of Baghdad 1940 - produced by Alexander Korda and directed by Michael Powell, Ludwig Berger and Tim Whelan, with additional contributions by William Cameron Menzies and Korda brothers Vincent and Zoltán.The Thief of Bagdad 1924 - directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Douglas Fairbanks. Anna May WongSabu Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.