My designs blend influences from both East and West

KIRAN RAVILIOUS, PATTERN DESIGNER & LINO PRINTER

- RACHEL CROW & JANET MCMEEKIN

Kiran Ravilious’ top-floor studio, nestled under the eaves of a screen-printing factory on the corner of a quiet street in Leicestershire, looks out over the urban rooftops – far removed from the lush greenery of tropical plants that surrounded her as a child growing up in Singapore, and which inspired many of her earliest designs.

‘I would often go to the Botanical Gardens and doodle for hours, and I used to love drawing trees as a child – you get such huge ones over there. But having lived in England for more than 15 years, you can see the influence of British plants in my work now. And the colours, which aren’t as bright here – they are more muted,’ Kiran explains.

Her repeat designs for wallpapers and fabrics, worked up from her initial hand-carved lino prints, feature leaf forms and abstract shapes, derived from her medley of Eastern and Western influences – from exotic ferns to the leaf of the majestic oak. ‘I like to be quite spontaneous; I don’t have a lot of sketchbooks. Instead, ideas come to me and I’ll start drawing directly onto lino, then carve them out and print onto linen,’ Kiran explains. ‘That’s what I like about handprinting: it is so instant, and I can see straight away how a design looks on fabric. Sometimes I will print just one or two motifs on my press, then transfer them to the computer and start playing with scale and colours.’