Louisa Loakes is a textile artist based in Peckham, London, who takes inspiration from various cultures, including the block printing heritage of Northern India. Although formally trained as a painter at Wimbledon School of Art, she found herself increasingly drawn to print, deciding to specialise in both printmaking and the traditional block printing. Today, Loakes describes herself as an “artist/block printer”, combining hand painted and block printed designs in a range of fabrics.

She often uses natural forms and lines to inspire designs, working from sketches or photographs of plants, animals and other features of the environment. She tends to use a muted colour palette, with a splash of brighter tones here and there to bring the design together. In her prints, you can see how traditional Indian motifs and design traditions have informed her work. However, at the same time her designs remain modern and fresh.