Joanne Soroka studied at McGill University, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and Edinburgh College of Art. Soroka was the Artistic Director of Dovecot Studios (then Edinburgh Tapestry Company) for 5 years, until she founded Ivory Tapestries in 1987. She was also a part-time tutor at Edinburgh College of Art and continues to teach as a part-time lecturer at the Office of Lifelong Learning at the University of Edinburgh until now.
Soroka’s primary medium is tapestry weaving, supplemented by other textiles and paperworks. She aims to use the possibilities of colour and texture to the maximum, by juxtaposing shiny and matte materials, for example, or watery to solid colour. Some of her work is based on paper collages and is built up in layers, while another preoccupation in her work is patterns that almost repeat, similar to those in nature, such as ripples on water. Soroka’s award-winning work has been exhibited widely in the UK and abroad and is held in collections in Canada, the USA, Estonia, Japan and Great Britain. She is also the author of Tapestry Weaving: Design and Technique, published by Crowood Press in 2011.
Image: Water of Life detail. By kind premission of William Grant and Sons.