Erin McQuarrie is an artist, designer and educator based in the Scottish Highlands. She believes ancient methods of making provide an innovative means of interpreting and responding to contemporary life. Through textiles McQuarrie reacts to the everyday – the language of warp and weft is her vocabulary, providing an antithesis to our fast-paced consumerist society, an outlet to explore health and wellbeing, and a platform for historical recovery. Made from sourced textile waste, found objects, handspun naturally dyed yarns and unconventional materials, McQuarrie’s weavings challenge the traditional assumption that cloth is a purely domestic medium and demonstrate that textiles can be architectural, dynamic, poetic, and sensitive.
She completed her MFA in Textiles at Parsons School of Design, NYC (2021) and her BFA in Textiles at The Glasgow School of Art (2018). Her work has been exhibited in Scotland and internationally, including Jane Lombard Gallery, Mana Contemporary, The Royal Scottish Academy, L’Space Gallery, NYPL, and New York Textile Month. McQuarrie was a finalist for The Dorothy Waxman International Textile Prize (2021) and has been awarded a UK/US Fulbright Scholarship (2019/20), NYFA Public Engagement Grant (2021), the Lenore G. Tawney Scholarship at Peters Valley School of Craft (2021), Inches Carr Trust Award Craft Scotland (2022) Cove Park International Residency (2023) and RSA Residency for Scotland (2024).