'We are two generations apart but have a shared vision': Painted Living Garments by Luke Thompson and Joan Murray at Skipton Town Hall
She creates beautiful clothes, he paints portraits of people wearing them. Joan Murray and Luke Thompson talk to Stephanie Smith about their art meets fashion exhibition which opens in Skipton next week.
When artist Luke Thompson first saw designer Joan Murray’s mesmerising, sculptural, kaleidoscopic gowns, he was “completely struck” by the colour, the movement and the life radiating from within them - and he knew that he wanted to paint them.
Skipton-based fashion and textiles designer Joan knits her garments in one piece, with no needlework, creating circles of yarn that flow as they respond to a living, moving body.
He approached Joan with an idea of a collaboration, a project celebrating the people, places and stories of North Yorkshire through portraiture, fashion and the creative process.
The result is an exhibition called Painted Living Garments, which opens at Skipton Town Hall next Saturday and runs until next April.
There are 16 oil paintings by Luke, 33, and 16 garments by Joan, 72, plus studies and sketches by both.
Joan says: “Something that's quite important for us both is the fact that we're at least two generations apart, if not more.
“We're both learning together all the way, and I've been introducing, I believe, some general ideas about movement.”
From her Skipton home, where she has a studio upstairs and a loom downstairs, Joan works as a knitwear designer, textiles weaver and artist.
She grew up in Portrush, Northern Ireland, and studied first at the University of Ulster Art College, then Winchester School of Art, and then the Royal College of Art, for her MA in Knitted Textiles.
For 21 years, she taught Fashion and Textiles at Craven College until she retired in 2022. Alongside her teaching, she developed her own creative practice, undertaking commissions, exhibiting and selling her work.
She has been to Nashville, Tennessee, as weaver-in-residence at Sing Global, and twice to Holy Island for residencies at the St Cuthbert's Centre. In December last year, she created an event at Craven College Drama Studio with Eliot Smith Contemporary Dance Company.
Self-taught artist Luke, who is also a musician, grew up in Methley, Leeds, and now lives in Settle, although his studio is at Craven Arts House in Skipton.
“I started drawing at 23, 24,” he says. “I went to life drawing for the first time and it changed my life, and I learned everything I could. I went to different workshops and classical atelier-style workshops to learn the fundamentals of drawing and painting from life, and then set up my own studio.”
He specialises in portraiture, and also loves painting landscapes and still life. “This collaboration was great because I was able to combine the three,” he says.
Luke approached Joan with the collaboration idea two years ago, after seeing her work at Craven Arts, asking if she might be interested in a project in which models would wear her garments to sit for oil portraits.
The models and sitters are mainly people that Joan has known for years, including a doctor, a musician and a fine artist.
“As the sessions went on and we met different models and painted them all, it just expanded into this breadth of amazing experiences,” Luke says.
Joan says: “We were surprised at the stories that came out, or the skill, like a piano player playing all afternoon while we painted her.
The 16 paintings took place over 18 months. “Some are full-length figurative works in the landscape,” says Luke. “The person, the garment and the place all interlinked to create a narrative.”
Locations included Joan's studio and Luke’s studio, Parcevall Hall, Skipton Castle, Skipton’s The Wilderness and Holy Trinity Church Gardens, and Giggleswick.
Most garments were from Joan’s samples, while some were owned by the wearers, who have also lent them for the exhibition.
Both Luke and Joan made colour studies and compositional sketches, exploring poses, styles and scenes to inform the main painting, which Luke then undertook in his studio.
Fine artist Jacquie Denby, from Grassington, wore a red suit of a red dress and trousers, in Joan’s studio. “It's all done in a warm fine merino wool with a bit of silk and cashmere and I played with the reds and the pinks,” says Joan.
Luke says: “I liked the intimacy of the space and the atmosphere of the room. I'd never met Jacquie before, but during the sitting, we had this really wonderful conversation while we both painted. It had a really subtle pose to it, and there was like a quietness to it, a contrast with the dress.
“It was one of the first ones that we did, so I felt that I could really learn a lot, and it pushed me in terms of getting that striking colour, and understanding Joan's work.”
One painting is of Joan herself, at her loom, wearing a design she made 25 years ago.
“I knew it would have the impact of the green, the black and the pink going round,” she says. “All my garments are really, really flattering, and they fit all body sizes, depending on how the customer feels about their curves.
“Although I was weaving on the loom, I also make garments entirely on the knitting machine, so wearing that dress and working on the loom was summing up the breadth of what I do.”
Luke says: “We had two sessions of three hours, so in the first session I did a drawing and the second I did a colour study. Joan was just working and weaving at the time, so I got a really great experience of viewing that and seeing how the loom moved, and also the light effect of both days, of the natural daylight and the artificial light, and I really loved that contrast.
“And it was about getting to know Joan. I think that's when we had the time to really talk about our ideas.”
Joan says: “My whole passion is for young people. I have young people doing work experience with me. It's very important, I think, to share what you know and who you know.
“I love organising collaborative activity. I also feel I'm at the - I don't want to say at the end of my career - but I'm at the time of my career where, it's almost to me like a retrospective of a lot of the sampling that I've done over the years. And this is what I feel is very valuable for me doing this along with Luke.”
To Luke she says: “You've also helped me see my work in a whole different light, how strong and how powerful and colourful. And how important it is when it's worn on the person, that living, moving body.”
Painted Living Garments by Luke Thompson and Joan Murray opens at Skipton Town Hall on Saturday, October 10, 2026 and runs until April 14, 2027. See: www.joanmurray.co.uk lukethompsonart.com