Okay, it’s no secret that I love the combination of embroidery on photographs, but these lovely pieces by Palm Springs based artist Han Cao have taken these found images from the past, and brought them directly into our current situation. This series, titled “Quarantine Collection”, is her latest work. Here are her words:

“This collection was created as a way to remember this significant, historic time, focusing on our collective individual efforts to protect and save the lives of others.”

Beautiful. Wash your hands and wear a mask. It’s really easy.

Ummmm, I could not love this work more. These lovely, nature-embracing, embroidery on paper pieces are the latest work by California based artist Natalie Ciccoricco. In fact, they are a result of the worldwide lockdown we’re all experiencing at the moment. Well, Natalie found the silver lining… and some sticks… and voila, a new body of work! Here are her words about this ongoing series, titled “Nesting”:

“While being under quarantine at home, I started creating embroidery artworks using materials found in our yard, on our deck or nature walks. Exploring the juxtaposition between geometric shapes and organic elements, this series is an ongoing exercise to find beauty and hope in challenging times.”

Ahhh, yes. So beautiful on so many levels.

ps. This Friday, May 22nd at 12pm ET, I will be doing another LIVE art sale at Showfields.com … and you guessed it, two of Natalie’s original pieces will be included in the lineup! YAY! RSVP to the event right here.

Triangles, and embroidery, and toile, oh my! I’ve written about the powerful work of Philadelphia based artist Sarah Detweiler before, but I just had to give you a look at her latest ongoing series, titled “Hidden Mother”. The work is absolutely gorgeous, and as always, Sarah has put a lot of personal thought and reflection into each piece. Here are a few excerpts from an interview she did with Create Magazine:

“My recent work is a reflection of my personal experiences of motherhood, pregnancy loss, and resilience … Conceptually, I have been exploring the rainbow as an archetype and the identity of a mother through the Victorian “Hidden Mother” photography trend, where mothers would drape themselves in cloth to conceal themselves while holding their children still for long exposure photographs.”

Okay, that’s super weird! I want to know more, don’t you? Apparently she’s been posting the behind-the-scenes info to her Instagram stories, so follow along right here.

Oh my word … dreamy, bead-covered, aquatic, Greek goddesses in blue! This is just a tiny bit the textile sculpture work of American artist Tasha Lewis. I’ve written about her before, but she currently has a show happening in Nashville TN, so I wanted to make sure you knew about it. Yes, some of her most recent work is currently being shown at the Centennial Park Conservancy {Parthenon Gallery} in an exhibition titled Flood Lines. Here are a few words, and a quote from Tasha, from the gallery’s site about this show:

A student of art and literature, sculptor Tasha Lewis borrows from ancient artifacts to evoke contemporary narratives about women. In ‘Flood Lines’ she updates classical forms such as vessels and figures featuring hand embroidered beads, wire, and hand dyed fabric. Over 35 sculptures of exquisite craftsmanship are carefully arranged within the gallery to create an immersive space that is both formal and organic. Here life-sized human heads, legs, and torsos wend their way among Alabastron and Lekythos vessels to create what Lewis calls a “minimalist bath house.” … 

Flood Lines coincides with the 100th anniversary of the 19th US Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote. As Tennessee suffragists were instrumental to the ratification of this law, Lewis sees Flood Lines as an homage to these women.

“My figures embody an independence not unlike the Tennessee suffragists of 100 years ago who fought for the voting rights of American women. Their courage helped to make democracy available to all citizens. My work employs sewing, embroidery, and beadwork, crafts that were among the housework that anti-suffragists worried women would abandon if they got the vote. As ancient Greece is the birthplace of democracy, the Greek forms in my pieces evoke a connection between the ancient and modern, hopefully celebrating and reinventing the classical.”

You can find Tasha’s show in the East Gallery of the Parthenon from now until Sunday, May 10, 2020. I plan on popping in when I’m in Nashville this March… can’t wait!

Hahahahahaha! From hand-lettered vintage plates, to new embroidery on old embroidery – both covered in curse words and blunt sayings – this is the work of  Canadian artist Marie-Claude Marquis:

“… Touching both graphic design and visual arts, she is inspired by souvenirs, nostalgia, pop culture, Quebec identity and her own emotions which she expresses with a feminine touch and a colorful sensitivity. 

In her gallery work, Marie-Claude  has mastered the art of re-appropriation in giving found objects new meaning. T hat way she can give these objects a second life, prolong their existence and reduce her own environmental impact. Mainly by typographical interventions, she always finds a way to give new meanings to these antiques. The result of her work is often humorous, sometimes irreverent but always keeps a big focus on aesthetics.”

Marie-Claude’s latest solo show, titled “We’re All Kinda Fucked Up” opens tomorrow night, Saturday January 11th at Recess in San Francisco {816 Sutter Street}. The opening reception is from 6-9pm, and the show runs until February 1, 2020.

ps. Recess is the newest space by the wonderful people behind Hashimoto Contemporary and Spoke Art. This is their first show at Recess {previously the Spoke space}, so go and check it out! 

Embroidery where the Berlin Wall used to stand. Beautiful on many levels. These are just a few of the 43 embroidered photographs that are part of “Berlin”, a series and new exhibition by LA based artist Diane Meyer. The show opens TONIGHT, November 14th, in New York at Klompching Gallery (6- 8pm). Here is a description of the show found on the gallery site:

Being shown for the first time in its entirety, the 43 artworks in the exhibition are being exhibited to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, including artworks never before shown.

Made over the course of seven years, the photographs trace the entire, circa 96 mile path of the former Berlin Wall, taking in sites in the German capital’s city center, as well as the outskirts of the city through suburbs and the surrounding countryside.

Sections of the photographs have been obscured by cross-stitch embroidery, sewn directly into the photograph. This stitching is a signature mark of the artist across her artworks. The embroidery is made to resemble pixels and borrows the visual language of digital imaging in an analog, tactile process. In many images, the embroidered sections represent the exact scale and location of the former Wall offering a pixelated view of what lies behind. In this way, the embroidery appears as a translucent trace in the landscape of something that no longer exists but is a weight on history and memory.

The show runs until January 10, 2020. Go!

Gasp! This is the work of Malaysian artist Sheena Liam. I’ve been recording episodes for my podcast over the past couple of weeks, and one of my fabulous co-hosting experts told me about Sheena’s work. I couldn’t wait for that episode to air … and can you blame me!? Elegant drawings turned into forest green stitches, tiny details like those stripes and fabric creases and, oh my word, that free-flowing hair! Here’s a little bit from Sheena’s ABOUT page:

Sheena Liam is a Malaysian born artist and model. As a child, Liam learnt the basics of embroidery from her mother and found herself revisiting the medium time and time again as means of self expression between traveling and modeling. 

“In a strange way modeling parallels my art in the sense I often have to use body language as means of expressing a certain sort of mood. It’s no different from my embroideries.”

Lovely.

Sigh. This is the dreamy mixed media sculpture of Swiss artist Juliette Sallin. Her work – the colors, those textures, the delicate elegance of it all – are absolutely poetic on their own, but then you add her artist statement:

“I am a visual artist who has always been fascinated by the way we perceive and remember the landscape through our senses. I translate this interest into sculptures made of paper, but also of silk, brass and other materials. I select them for their ability to transcribe the beauty of the elements with their shapes and colors of course, but also for their tactile qualities, and sometimes even how they sound when you touch them.

Enlightened by my own experiences of Nature, by the non-dualistic oriental philosophies (Shivaism, Taoism), the phenomenological philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, and the environmental writings of David Abram, I perceive our inner plenitude as a communion with Nature and the elements. This feeling could be reached when we open ourselves to our sensations, and let our perceptions wrap us.

During the process, I borrow various crafts’ techniques, such as embroidery, silk dyeing, paper decoupage and metal forming. By assimilating these gestures in my artistic practice, I get closer to a form of humbleness and sincerity, where patience and mastery of the mind help me to get closer to my subject and to recreate, in a subjective way, the sensations I experienced in a brief moment of fullness.

My work can be considered as part of the Slow Art movement, and offers a reflection about Time; a very fleeting one, perceived while being in communion with Nature, and another one, longer and precise, during the creation of the artwork.”

Aaaaaaand exhale. Happy Friday.

{via Create Magazine}

Photogrembroiderwax. Okay, so here’s the thing… there’s no one simple category to pop this work into. Ethereal photography, delicate embroidery, tiny beads, and painterly wax all existing in this quiet, dreamy world created by Australian artist Marisa Veerman. Speaking of dreamy, here is her poetic artist statement:

“I have developed my techniques through a deep personal desire to find a peaceful silence.
To pause in an in between place. 
Stitching is a deliberate act of taking time.
To linger. 
To move forward slowly, quietly and with consideration.” 

Marisa has a new show about to open at Lethbridge Gallery in Brisbane. It’s titled IN ALL SHE IS and is open from  September 14th through October 1, 2019.

Embroidery {and on two of the boys, inkjet as well} on found images. Oh, the work of London based artist Julie Cockburn. LOVE. After my post on Tom Butler’s gouache paintings earlier this week, I got a bunch of comments asking if I knew Julie’s work. I do, and I love it! I’ve already written about her, but when I checked the post it was WAY back in 2012!? Well, that’s far too long! Stunning compositions, gorgeous palette choices, and insane stitching skills. Again, LOVE. Happy Friday.