A legendary Latin American folk musician, researcher, poet, and performer, Chilean artist Violeta Parra (1917-1967) was also a remarkable artist, producing a large body of intricate quilts and embroideries, or ‘arperillas’, traditional Chilean patchwork pictures made from wool, thread, and repurposed textile fragments. She famously displayed these embroideries at the Louvre in Paris in 1964,…
Category Archives: EMBROIDERY
Since launching her eponymous fashion label in 2009, French designer Olympia Le-Tan has earned a cult following for her whimsical, playful and artisanal approach to making accessories. From the outset she has been producing stylised ‘storybook bags,’ hand-woven clutch bags in the same size and shape as limited-edition books, featuring ‘covers’ with references to pop…
The early 20th century Austrian designer Dagobert Peche was a remarkable talent, whose visionary career expanded across a seemingly endless array of decorative art forms, including metalwork, glass, ceramics, furniture, architecture, and textiles. One of his greatest contributions came in the form of lacemaking – he produced and designed a large body of stunningly intricate…
Chilean arpilleras might at first look like playful, whimsical patchworks, featuring brightly coloured houses, scattered children and blazing suns. But closer inspection reveal that they are a potent, emotionally raw form of resistance and rebellion, one that emerged during the brutalist regime of Augusto Pinochet from 1973-1989. While women were forced into submissive silence by…
There is a curious and unexpected dichotomy between sound and fabric in the art of Vivian Caccuri, inviting us to consider the ways in which the two are more closely interrelated than we might at first think. Primarily a sound-based artist, her recent forays into textiles has provided a tactile and sensorial element to her…
Hailing from Johannesburg, textile artist Billie Zangewa makes intricate stitched collages from raw silk that celebrate the joys and struggles of her life as a black woman and mother. Her work reflects on the ways in which black women’s wider political status bleeds into their everyday lives, a process she calls “daily feminism.” Yet there…
Egyptian-French artist Ghada Amer has a widely varied practice spanning sculpture, printmaking, video and installation, but she is arguably best known for her alternative embroidered paintings. From a distance, they might look like expressionistic canvases, but peek closer and they are laced with hidden elements of erotica aimed not for the male gaze, but for…
Legendary, charismatic textile artist Nike Davies-Okundaye has led a live that is as colourful and eventful as her art. Now recognised as one of Nigeria’s foremost textiles artists, she has spent the last five decades successfully invigorating the traditional techniques of batik and adire, merging them with shimmering passages of embroidery and intricate patchworks loaded…
Pascal Monteil’s rich, vibrant tapestries are rich with references to stories from all around the world, featuring mystical, fictional characters in colourful, intricately adorned clothes, or taking part in collective, dream-like scenarios. As much as they invite us in to contemplate their hidden symbols and stories, they are also exquisitely made, sometimes taking up to…
London-based, contemporary textile artist Richard McVetis makes intricate, minimalist objects that take hours of dedication and patience. His works of art, which range from wall hangings to sculptural cubes, feature tiny, hand-woven grey and black marks built up slowly over time onto woolen fabric grounds, each stitch recording the methodical, repetitive movements of his hand…
Award-winning textile artist Ekta Kaul has a deep-rooted connection to her Indian heritage, which she brings to her London-based practice today. In her hands, India’s Kantha stitching is a deeply tactile means of telling stories, weaving together references to history, place and belonging with tightly bound, intricate passages of thread on indulgent fabrics such as…
American fashion designer, textile, and performance artist Nick Cave has an uncanny ability to weave ordinary detritus, from sticks to stuffed-sock monkey dolls, crocheted doilies, repurposed sweaters, and dyed hair into the most fantastical, transformative costumes. The artist is best-known for his intricate, elaborate ‘Soundsuits’, which are designed to be both seen and heard, giving…
Light, airy and weightless, Korean-born contemporary artist Do Ho Suh’s ephemeral architectural constructs are made from great swathes of sheer fabric and thread. He reconstructs the many different places he has lived around the world, recreating distinctive features, rooms and even staircases of places he has passed through during his nomadic life. Do Ho calls…
American quilts, Japanese kimonos, French linen and African strip-weave: these are just a handful of the vintage sourced fabrics that are gathered and upcycled by menswear designer Emily Adams Bode for her eponymous menswear brand Bode. This radical American designer is one of a generation who are transforming the face of the fast-paced fashion industry…
What do the Royal School of Needlework, Julian Assange and Philip Pullman have in common? They all stitched parts of the 13-meter-long Magna Carta (An Embroidery) by British artist Cornelia Parker. Parker turns everyday objects into mesmerizing and thought-provoking artworks. In this case, she asked 250 people to help her recreate in thread-on-fabric the Wikipedia…
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