embroidery

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with embroidery

Art Craft

Vivid Hues and Intricate Embroidery Bring Yumi Okita’s Remarkably Tactile Moths to Life

In vividly colored thread and textiles, Yumi Okita imbues remarkably tactile moths and butterflies with lifelike features. The North Carolina-based artist designs each specimen to perch on its own delicate wire legs, and some of the larger creatures boast wing spans nearly 10 inches wide. Long fascinated by the natural world, she portrays the insects’ intricate detail, innate fragility, and sublime patterns in embroidery thread, faux fur, feathers, and layers of dyed fabric.

Okita often sells her sculptures in her Etsy shop and is currently exploring the theme of nature further in a series of botanical designs, which she has begun sharing on Instagram.

 

Art

Plastic Bottle Caps Bound by Thread Undulate Across Ghizlane Sahli’s Embroidered Sculptures

Echoing coral, cells, and the contours of the female body, Ghizlane Sahli stitches sculptural embroideries that curve and arch in shapely forms. The voluptuous works are part of what the Marrakech-based artist terms The Aveoles, a series made from plastic bottle caps interlaced with thread. With a background in architecture, Sahli shares that she “is always concerned by space and volume,” two components that manifest in myriad ways throughout her three-dimensional works.

The salvaged caps nestle into dense patches covered in silk and wool, adding texture and depth to the overall works and referencing the inherent relationship between the individual and the whole. “It is the atom that constitutes the substances. It is the cell whose accumulation creates the matter,” Sahli tells Colossal, noting that she finds the repetition of washing, stitching, and assembling her works meditative and trance-like.

“I also have the feeling that each waste comes from a previous life with its own energy. The final artwork is made with the accumulation of all the energies of the different waste and has its own soul.” This idea of gathering proliferates Sahli’s practice, and she often works in collaboration with women in her community who utilize ancestral embroidery techniques, translating the traditional, localized methods into contemporary contexts with universal themes of preservation and vitality.

Sahli was recently named a winner in The Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge, which will be touring internationally in the coming months. For more of the artist’s textile-based work, visit her site and Instagram.

 

Craft

Impressionistic Embroideries by Cassandra Dias Reflect Movement and Lush Landscapes in Thread

Cassandra Dias combines French knots, satin stitches, and various thread-painting techniques into impressionistic landscapes teeming with texture and organic color. Rugged mountains swell in neutral tones, the water’s surface hazily reflects the surrounding trees, and tiny pops of lavender and orange emerge through fields of green. The Camarillo, California-based artist began working with fiber in early 2020 and has since developed her distinctive style, which evokes movement and mimics the visible brushstrokes associated with painting.

For a glimpse into Dias’s process and to keep up with news about available pieces, follow her on Instagram.

 

Art

Division of Birds: A Group Show at Paradigm Gallery Celebrates Feathered Life

The Division of Birds, housed inside Chicago’s Field Museum, boasts one of the largest scientific avian collections in the country, representing about 90% of the world’s genera and species and containing more than 480,000 specimens, 21,000 egg sets, and approximately 200 nests. A group show opening this month at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia references this unparalleled archive in a celebration of feathered life.

Curated by Colossal’s founder and editor-in-chief Christopher Jobson, Division of Birds is comprised of dozens of works in a range of styles and mediums. The show includes avian creatures both real and imagined and a vast array of aesthetics, from a trio of paper sculptures by Roberto Benavidez and Felicia Chiao’s emotionally charged illustrations to Lola Dupré’s collaged roosters and a three-dimensional nest embroidered by Megan Zaniewski.

Division of Birds runs from August 26 to September 18.

 

Art Science

Bees Wrap Ava Roth’s Intricately Beaded and Embroidered Motifs in Golden Honeycomb

Seasons and the natural rhythms of bees determine much of Ava Roth’s practice, which hinges on collaborating with the fuzzy pollinators. The Ontario-based artist (previously) stitches elaborate embroideries with beads and intricate thread-based motifs that, once her contribution is complete, she turns over to her insect counterparts. The critters then finish the mixed-media pieces by embedding them in golden, hexagonal honeycomb.

Because the bees Roth works with only produce the waxy substance during the heat of the summer, the time available for inter-species cooperation is limited. In a note to Colossal, the artist describes recent shifts in her practice that more deeply embody the shared process:

The collaged portion of this season’s pieces, which are made largely of encaustic and stitch work, are designed to match the intricacy of the comb in a fair exchange of labour. I had in mind “a stitch for every cell.” I have also introduced more sophisticated shapes, and multiple shapes, into the comb, and the results have been very exciting.

In addition to the pieces shown here, Roth has also been developing a collection of larger encaustic paintings on photographs that she works on when her collaborators are dormant. “Using the beeswax in these different ways feels very holistic,” she says, “and having the intimate connection to the bees in the summer makes working with wax as a material during the winter months deeply satisfying.”

Explore an archive of the artist’s organically formed works on her site and Instagram.

 

Craft

Skies Peek Through Foliage in French Knots in Embroideries that Peer Up From the Forest Floor

Look up! The vibrant embroideries of the U.K.-based artist known as Sew Beautiful capture the awe-inspiring breadth of the outdoors within a tiny wooden hoop. Layering colorful French knots and long, straight threads in neutral tones, the artist transforms thin organza bases into fiber renditions of forests dense with autumn leaves or aerial shots capturing wide swaths of landscape. The hand-stitched pieces are vivid and tinged with whimsy, and Sew Beautiful has a few works currently available on Etsy. Follow shop updates and new embroideries on Instagram. (via So Super Awesome)