Sharon graduated from the RCA in 1992 with an MA Textiles (print) and set up a studio workshop in Mount Pleasant, Bloomsbury, London. From 1992 to 2012 she practiced as a designer maker running a business creating accessories under her label, Sharon Ting Handprinted Textiles.  Sharon exhibited her collections through international trade shows such as London Fashion week, 100% Design, NY Now and SFIGF, US. She supplied scarf collections to high-end boutiques across Europe and the US and exclusively to Liberty, Browns Own, Selfridges, Barneys NY, Takashimaya NY and Joyce HK. 

Moving to a spacious studio in Walthamstow, London, Sharon created larger-scale textile artwork for interiors. Exhibiting regularly through galleries she gained commissions from interior designers and architects such as BDP, Levitt Bernstein, Penoyre and Prasad and worked with various international art consultancies and with private clients and collectors. 

Since 2012 through to today her practice focuses on site specific work, colour, dye, print and materials. Currently, she is a lead artist creating art interventions for a multi-faith space, the Sanctuary at the Royal County Hospital, Brighton, with an estimated completion in 2022/23.

Her work has been collected by the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Crafts Council. She is passionate about her subject area and has lectured widely since 1992 to today. 

Awards:

Recipient of the Pantone, European, Colour Award for her textile designs. The Liberty Print Prize. The Colour Prize and the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers Prize for colour & innovative textiles. Previously, she sold textile designs to both fashion and interior companies such Romeo Gigli, Missoni, Laura Ashley, Timney Fowler, Marks and Spencer’s, Courtaulds, Sandersons. 

Also the recipient of setting-up and exhibition awards from the Crafts Council, the British Fashion Council, the Princes Trust and the Department of Trade and Industry.

Inspiration:

Key words: Humanistic, trans-disciplinary approach, applied art, creative commons, motherhood, women at work, inclusivity, uninhibited making. Geometry, the haptic and our senses.

I had just begun studying at the RCA in 1990 when the film Ju Dou by Zhang Yimou was released at the Renoir Cinema. A sensorial film set in a Chinese textile dye house. The images of lengths of cloth, hand-dyed in steaming pits of colour, hanging as backdrops to a tragic story inspired me to create large-scale, ethereal, textile hangings. A British Born Chinese Malaysian, I am interested in how colour connects to my heritage and cultural identity and in the scientific, technical processes that go hand in hand with the materiality and the art of colour. As a maker, the act of applying colour gives an instant transformation, which is endlessly uplifting.