

Photo taken by Yara Chamoun
About
Priyal Patel (b. Gujarat, India) is a multidisciplinary artist
and natural dye alchemist currently based in London. With a Bachelors in Textile design, having worked in the industry and attaining her MA in Textiles , she has spent over half a decade researching and practicing print, natural dyeing and painting with/on textiles .Having grown up with a father who worked as a screen-printing artist, Priyal’s relationship with textiles has always been deeply personal.
Journey
During her undergraduate years, she explored community- and Indigenous-led crafts, engaging with traditional practices such as batik, ajrakh (block printing), and weaving (Pattu). After working in the textile industry, her desire to reconnect with more rooted, sustainable practices led her to Colorashram, a natural color community on barter basis where she would learn about the world of natural dyes and in return would provide her painting skills, she immersed herself in the world of natural dyes. This experience became a turning point, as natural dyeing evolved into both a creative process and a tool for self-discovery.She has since continued to deepen her connection with heritage practices through workshops such as Mata ni Pachedi which is an age old art of natural dye painting on textiles where the cloth portrays a mobile temple because some communities in India were not allowed to worship in temples.
Practice
She primarily uses reclamined fabric and natural pigments for her textile paintings.Her experience of working in the textile industry, combined with a childhood spent observing and reusing textile waste from her father’s screen-printing factory, helped her see potential in discarded materials.Her process is ritualistic, slow and through this embodied making she paints/prints personal and political narratives of body and land.For Priyal, influenced by her journey, textiles are not just garments—they are living, breathing archives of memories, stories, and resistance.
PUBLICATION
Inherited rituals- Riverside
EXHIBITIONS
Earth to Earth 2025, 42 Gorst Road Studios, London
Tekhne RCA, Gulbenkian Gallery, London
Ancestral Utopia x SustainLab RCA, Hangar Space, London
Tactile Landscapes, RCA Textiles 2025, Studio Building, RCA Battersea,London
India’s First Natural Color Festival, Banglore, 2023
Natural Color Festival, Zapurza , Pune, 2024
COMMISSIONS/ COLLABORATIONS
Colorashram- project on Comic book, 2022
Colorashram- series of painted collection ,2022
LoveChange- painted scarf ,2022
Ministry of Now - painted T-shirts ,2022
Ministry of Now - painted T-shirts ,2023
Ministry of Now x Swayatra - printed T-shirts ,2024
Sustainlab x RCA , project on eco printing with marigold from dye garden, 2025
EXPERIENCE
Interned as a textile designer at Leh Studios, 2021
Pattu Craft Cluster Project, 2021
Graduation Project as a textile/fashion designer at Sete India, 2022
Assisted for an International Artist’s residency at Conflictorium , India, 2024
Interned at Bhavyaramesh as a graphic designer, 2024
Curational Graphics Lead for Textile Festival RCA , 2025
PUBLIC WORKSHOPS
Assisted a natural dye workshop at Colorashram
for CEPT college of Architecture, 2022
Led a Natural Dye Alchemy workshop at Textiles
Festival, 2025
EDUCATION
MA Textiles 2024-2025
Royal College of Art
BDes in Textiles 2018 - 2022
National Institute of Fashion Technology
CONTACT