Embroidery is an ancient art with variety of subsets. It was probably the primitive man who first started needle crafts. He would create threads from animal wools and plant fibres and needles from bones and ivory. As time passed, these stone aged men became more creative and began adding beads, bones, and stones to their garments for decoration.
In 1964 fossilized remaining of a man was found in Russia. Archaeologists believed, he lived around 30,000BC. His fur clothes, boots and hat were decorated with horizontal rows of ivory beads. Some believe this could be early man’s attempt at bead embroidery.
Embroidery as an art form goes back to the Iron Age. Evidence of ancient embroidery can be seen in many paintings, sculptures and vases.
Mosaic from the ancient Greek culture, pictures embroidered clothes with silk threads and precious stones.
In many cultures such as Persian, Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Greek, embroidered clothing, religious objects and household items have been a sign of wealth and prestige.
This art form is still going in different locations of the world and is beautiful admirable. But some artists have broken the traditional boarders of this art and have introduced new forms of contemporary embroidery to the world.
Severija Incirauskaite-Kriauneviciene
Lithuanian artist, adds floral and decorative patterns to different objects. Instead of fabric she uses metal, and with each chosen canvas she wants to create a contrast with the meaning of traditional embroidery.
Ana Teresa Barboza
Her work creates a fine line between embroidery and sculpture. Her art doesn’t end with the embroidery loop, it goes outside the boarders and creates an abstract form. The sense of movement you get from her works, makes them closer to our surrounding world.
Sophie Standing
Her animal portraits are inspired by moving from England to Africa. She combined her passion for embroidery and textile with her surroundings and created her art.
Lisa Smirnov
She mixes painting techniques with embroidery and creates her pieces. Choice of colors and her needleworks give a sense of depth and form to her creations. For her project “Artist At Home”, she collaborated with a fashion designer Olya Glagoleva; adding freehand embroidery to each one-of-a-kind piece. The project goal is to show that art can have any form and you can even wear it as a piece of clothing.
Debbie Smyth
She blurs the boarders between linear illustrations, two and three diminutional works and embroidery. First she plot out each artwork, then she fills the space with masses of threads creating elegant, expressive and linear forms of animals, figures and architecture.
Kirsty Whitlock
She uses embroidery as a medium to send out social messages. With the use of recycled and reclaimed materials she implies to the “throwaway culture of consumerism”. Tactile typography aims to critique corporate culture and question society understands of value. She believes embroidery has the power to transform; it enables the properties of materials to be manipulated, challenged and subverted.
