S J Ince at Nuit Blanche Toronto 2019 with her mixed media tapestry 'Time's Progress'
Samantha-Jane Ince (S J Ince) is a textile and mixed-media artist working across needle-felting, digital illustration, collage, animation and installation. She creates tactile “illustrations in wool” that explore identity, social connection, technology, memory, change, resilience, the spaces people inhabit, and the ordinary, beautiful and sometimes strange details of everyday life.
For example, her early series of 'illustrations in wool' explored the nature of the ‘Hustle’ and how creative entrepreneurs navigate making a living in today’s world, touching on themes such as networking, self-promotion, social media, burnout and self-care, co-working spaces, technology and being 'always on', drawing from her own personal experience as an artist.
Samantha exhibited at Nuit Blanche Toronto in 2019, showing a mixed-media tapestry entitled 'Time's Progress', created from needle-felted wool & silk, interwoven with pulsing electroluminescent light, at this all-night, city-wide public art event. This tapestry represents the progress of time that is often apparent in the fabric and pattern of our faces and how change, both creative and disruptive - represented by the light interwoven into the tapestry - makes an indelible mark on us all, as we move through our lives. In 2024, Rush Hour 501 BC (2022), created in collaboration with illustrator E C Mazur, was exhibited in the Museum of Dufferin’s juried Unity in Diversity exhibition.
Medium & Method
Her process usually involves creating a digital illustration, collage or abstract design, which she transfers onto fabric and then transforms and alters by hand, using needle-felting, into a tapestry or 'wool illustration', mounted on stretched fabric or incorporated into an acrylic-painted canvas or wood panel, along with washi and other handmade paper. Samantha loves the tactile nature of needle-felting, the feel and warmth of the wool, the different textures and colours the fibres impart, and the meditative quality of the felting process. As well as the sculptural aspects that can be modelled from the wool and the ever-changing, evolving nature of the illustration as it is felted. She also creates limited-edition digital collage prints derived from her mixed-media artwork, photographs, and illustrations, and weaves modern geometric tapestries on a hand loom.
Samantha is also the founder and creative director of Petit Punnet, an independent artisan stationery, accessories, interiors and surface-design studio and brand that celebrates utility, colour, pattern, and illustration in the design of everyday items. Creating useful and decorative accessories for work, home and play, featuring her original designs and patterns. The studio paused during the pandemic as the practice evolved toward textile and mixed-media art.
Combining the use of fine art and traditional crafts like needle-felting and weaving with new technology such as digital printing and fabrication is at the core of Samantha’s multidisciplinary creative practice in design and mixed media art.
Recent work extends this practice into site-responsive installation and experimental forms of moving image and interaction. Current projects include Torre de David, Mirror Image / Between Selves, and ongoing research into how computational and AI tools might extend physical textile artworks while preserving their material character and artistic intent.
Originally from the UK, Samantha currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
CV
Exhibitions
2024 Unity in Diversity, Museum of Dufferin, Mulmur, Ontario. Rush Hour 501 BC (2022), created in collaboration with E C Mazur.
2019 Nuit Blanche Toronto, Artscape Daniels Launchpad, Toronto. Time’s Progress.
2019 Group Exhibition, Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto. Selected Illustrations in Wool works.
Group Exhibition at Xpace Cultural Centre, Toronto, Canada
Selected 'illustrations in wool' by S J Ince, 2019
Unity in Diversity Group Exhibition, Museum of Dufferin, Mulmur, Ontario, 2024
Exhibited Rush Hour 501 BC (2022), created in collaboration with E C Mazur.