Urban Fabric | Custom Lane | June 2026
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‘Urban Fabric’ was an collaborative exhibition presented by Louise Bennetts and David Lemm, two Edinburgh-based artists, whose practices share common concerns around making, place and process. Developed through varied material experimentation and manufacturing expertise, their distinct yet complimentary outcomes were forged independently but presented in dialogue.
David’s ‘Formworks’ series uses fragments of the tramline construction debris from nearby Leith, assembled into dense framed compositions and bold floor-based sculptures. Louise’s pieces are, similarly, constructed curious of tactile debris. Remnant fabrics from her studio have been earth-pigment painted and dried against varied textures, picking up their patina, or left to weather outside, formed by the elements. Some compositions are pure exercises in material relationships and line, whilst other pieces entangle these fabrics in compositions derived from abstracted drawings of streetscapes, building plans and desire lines.
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Of Place
Louise has long been interested by provenance and place, what it means to move through and occupy cities that are themselves in a constant state of regenerative flux.
Desire Lines I, II and III (above) considers 3 different experiences of walking through her local area, Marchmont, crafted in cloth painted in her back garden: local materials rendered to recall their very locality. She weaves together configurations derived from a blend of historic maps recording changing streetscapes, photography gathered by foot and contemporary street views of the wider area. Irregular building plans sweeping up a crescent are layered over the knotty line-markings of a junction, drawn into one linked composition, finding common line between differing routes through urban landscapes. The results are permeable, soft fabric facades, impossible to view without seeing the site of their installation through them.
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Of Process
The fabrics in these pieces are a mix of cotton organdie, and silk organza, gazar and habotai, many of which are remnant materials from the fashion industry. They have been painted with earth-pigments – ancient green earth, umber, iron oxide, or burnt sienna – washed by rain dried either hung outside or laid flat against varied textures. This results in unpredictable patinas, their surfaces wearing records of the weather or imprinted with the textures of what’s laid beneath them, in a manner satisfyingly similar to formworks cast concrete.
Most of these fabric fragments are salvaged from production offcuts of larger pieces, or development samples for other projects - errant experiments happily discovered en-route to another destination. Despite their seeming structural order, these pieces represent an unruly slice through time, as materials from projects spanning years are arranged into considered compositions or stacked strata. The process is inherently playful, unplanned and enjoyably unpredictable.
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Details of outdoor fabric painting using earth pigments:
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Details of ‘Formworks’ by David Lemm
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On Wednesday the 24th June Louise and David took part in a Talks at the Lane evening: a conversational wander through their comparable routes of enquiry, considering how their ideas emerge and works unfold, and celebrating both their areas of overlap and their unique divergences. This was hosted by Natasha Huq of GRAS architects and welcomed a lively audience from across Edinburgh’s creative sector.
![]()
‘Urban Fabric’ was an collaborative exhibition presented by Louise Bennetts and David Lemm, two Edinburgh-based artists, whose practices share common concerns around making, place and process. Developed through varied material experimentation and manufacturing expertise, their distinct yet complimentary outcomes were forged independently but presented in dialogue.
David’s ‘Formworks’ series uses fragments of the tramline construction debris from nearby Leith, assembled into dense framed compositions and bold floor-based sculptures. Louise’s pieces are, similarly, constructed curious of tactile debris. Remnant fabrics from her studio have been earth-pigment painted and dried against varied textures, picking up their patina, or left to weather outside, formed by the elements. Some compositions are pure exercises in material relationships and line, whilst other pieces entangle these fabrics in compositions derived from abstracted drawings of streetscapes, building plans and desire lines.
Of Place
Louise has long been interested by provenance and place, what it means to move through and occupy cities that are themselves in a constant state of regenerative flux.
Desire Lines I, II and III (above) considers 3 different experiences of walking through her local area, Marchmont, crafted in cloth painted in her back garden: local materials rendered to recall their very locality. She weaves together configurations derived from a blend of historic maps recording changing streetscapes, photography gathered by foot and contemporary street views of the wider area. Irregular building plans sweeping up a crescent are layered over the knotty line-markings of a junction, drawn into one linked composition, finding common line between differing routes through urban landscapes. The results are permeable, soft fabric facades, impossible to view without seeing the site of their installation through them.
Of Process
The fabrics in these pieces are a mix of cotton organdie, and silk organza, gazar and habotai, many of which are remnant materials from the fashion industry. They have been painted with earth-pigments – ancient green earth, umber, iron oxide, or burnt sienna – washed by rain dried either hung outside or laid flat against varied textures. This results in unpredictable patinas, their surfaces wearing records of the weather or imprinted with the textures of what’s laid beneath them, in a manner satisfyingly similar to formworks cast concrete.
Most of these fabric fragments are salvaged from production offcuts of larger pieces, or development samples for other projects - errant experiments happily discovered en-route to another destination. Despite their seeming structural order, these pieces represent an unruly slice through time, as materials from projects spanning years are arranged into considered compositions or stacked strata. The process is inherently playful, unplanned and enjoyably unpredictable.
Details of outdoor fabric painting using earth pigments:
Details of ‘Formworks’ by David Lemm
On Wednesday the 24th June Louise and David took part in a Talks at the Lane evening: a conversational wander through their comparable routes of enquiry, considering how their ideas emerge and works unfold, and celebrating both their areas of overlap and their unique divergences. This was hosted by Natasha Huq of GRAS architects and welcomed a lively audience from across Edinburgh’s creative sector.
