Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Paulina Bartnik

Poland-based artist Paulina Bartnik creates realistic-looking embroidered brooches of birds.The artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and is very passionate about embroidery.While it may be hard to see the abundance of bird species in the world in person, Bartnik  immortalizes their portraits in exquisite embroidered brooches.She uses her meticulous stitching techniques to render the unique appearance of each feathered creature—from barn owls to hummingbirds.She uses the needle painting technique, which she feels perfectly imitates bird feathers.Beginning with a background of felt sheets, the artist creates a combination of short and long stitches in a variety of colors to produce a textile effect.The faces of her embroidered birds feature all of their distinct markings, which make them appear incredibly real.Not only that, but the variety of hues she uses to create the feathers make it seem like the texture of the bird shimmers in the light.In general, I’m a little bit of a chaotic and impatient person,” Bartnick admits. “Embroidery helps me focus and calm down. I don’t treat it as a job, for me it’s a way to relax.”More of Paulina Bartnik’s amazing embroidery can be found at https://embirdery.com/.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Katrin Vates

Katrin Vates is an embroidery artist that has started to gain a following for her beautifully embroidered landscapes.Vates grew up in a small town in Siberia, but now calls the United States home where she raises her family.Using bleached canvas as a base, Vates works with thread in natural color palettes of greens or autumnal hues that she lays in variable lengths and thicknesses.Vates evokes the lushness of the great outdoors through embroidery. Her meticulously detailed landscapes depict tall trees and hidden houses via tiny stitches.She rarely sketches a preliminary design and never attaches a hoop, which allows more freedom to adjust both the image and the ways weather and sunlight impact the scenes.If you’ve ever stitched before, you might think Vates’ work is all French knots— the tiny balls that dot the surface of the fabric.And while French knots are part of her stitch repertoire, Vates also employs the regular straight stitch and chain stitch.“I have learned how to use the straight stitch in such a way that it can be difficult to distinguish it from a French knot,” Vates shares.“Such technique allows me to bring more realism into my embroidery.”More of Katrin Vates’ extraordinary stitchery can be found at https://taplink.cc/katrin.vates and https://www.instagram.com/katrin.vates/.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — ​Justyna Wołodkiewicz

 

Justyna Wołodkiewicz is a Contemporary Embroidery Artist from Poland who specializes in three-dimensional embroidery.

Taking inspiration from her surroundings as well as a strong awareness of her own creative process, Wołodkiewicz uses vibrant colors and breadth of contrasting textures and shapes to create finished pieces that are both technically complicated and incredibly whimsical. She specializes in combining tiny abstract sculptures (made of bright colored polymer clay)  with traditional art of stitching by hand.The clay is baked in the oven before implementing.Then everything is composed: threads, sculptures, colors, textures.When Wołodkiewicz designs her art she feels like all these candies are dancing in her circle.Her choices are intuitive and spontaneous, a subconscious translation of bouquets of feelings.Some pieces follow the harmony rules, resembling splashed rainbows; others are footprints of exploration into conflict and ambivalence.“Since the art lives in my heart, it will evolve together with me,” Wołodkiewicz says.“The message will become clearer and clearer. Therefore I love to explore constantly realms of spirituality, energy and self-healing.”More of ​Justyna Wołodkiewicz‘s amazing embroidery can be found at http://nibyniebo.com/.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Meredith Woolnough

Meredith Woolnough‘s elegant embroidered drawings capture the beauty and fragility of nature in knotted threads.

Woolnough is an internationally acclaimed, award winning artist from Newcastle, Australia.Through the use of freehand machine embroidery and soluble materials, she creates a new version of the natural world.

The exacting application of the simplest of stitches is used to create amazing embroidered works that reflect the beauty of life itself.Woolnough creates new pieces using references from physical specimens, taking care to examine and understand the construction of each piece.

She first maps out the complex arrangement of her design onto a cloth and then uses a sewing machine to create the sculpted piece.

When she is finished, the base fabric dissolves in water, leaving only the artist’s beautifully detailed stitch work.

She then mounts each piece with pins onto paper, setting it slightly away from the background to create shadows and depth that add to the allure of the piece.

More of Meredith Woolnough‘s elegant embroidery can be found at http://meredithwoolnough.com.au/.

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery (midweek) — Hinke Schreuders

Hinke Schreuders has been making small paintings or drawings on canvas with needle and thread since 2002. She draws on both 1950s advertising images of women and personal photographic material, attached them to linen, then added  embroidery and designs that heightens the beauty  of the photos.Her technique, embroidery, appears to be innocent, but her carefully constructed compositions evoke associations with more sinister undercurrents in a language that is prosaic and poetic at the same time. Ideas such as abstracted bubbles, flowers, and embroidery that resembles old-fashioned brocade drift in and out around the images.Schreuders art showcases real women behind the colors and patterns.With the added dimension of the surface embroidery, both the handiwork and the photo beneath become a new entity.Schreuders says she seeks to “subtly confuse notions of feminine vulnerability and reinforce the position of embroidery as an artistic medium.”

More of Hinke Schreuders‘ wonderful work can be found at http://sudsandsoda.com.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery — Michelle Kingdom

 

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Michelle Kingdom studied drawing and painting in college. As a self-taught embroidery artist, Michelle has been quietly creating figurative narratives in thread for two decades.Her stitched tableaus and landscapes depict individuals caught in the middle of intriguing yet ambiguous situations like something out of a dream, with characters lost in worlds out of their control or in the process of searching for meaning.Decidedly small in scale, the scenes are densely embroidered into compressed compositions.Kingdom has chosen to create small scale works that whisper untold truths,  and embroidery is the medium she felt was the best to share such powerful stories.Her work is inspired from personal mythologies, art history references, and other symbolic and allegorical content.The artist says, “I describe my work as drawing with thread. I think, plan and execute as a draftsman. Most all of my work is filled and dense, but it is still composed of zillions of skinny lines.”More of Michelle Kingdom’s intricate workings can be found at https://michellekingdom.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/michelle.kingdom.

 

 

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery on Wednesday — Ana Teresa Barboza

Ana Teresa Barboza creates colorful embroidery art that depicts natural forms found in plant life and landscapes.

Barboza has been drawn to creating full landscapes with yarn and thread, embroidering large tapestries with rivers, valleys, and waves that spill out from the wall and rest on the floor. 

Born in Lima, Perú in 1980,  Barboza lives and works in her native city.  

Her use of manual crafts became the means to convey a meditative and powerful observation with the environment and her relationship with reality. 

Barboza’s work pushes the boundaries of embroidery by incorporating different disciplines, such as illustration and photography.

 

More of Ana Teresa Barboza’s amazing tapestries can be found at http://anateresabarboza.blogspot.com.

 

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Marina Printseva

Talented and unique artist Marina Printseva was born in 1949 in the city of Pskov, Russia.

76911879_3166706_img_1690

She is a member of the Union of Artists of Russia, and a member of the International design and textiles Association.

76911882_3166706_69307897_princeva0015

Her technique is a brilliant mixture of embroidery, painting and application.

76911884_3166706_69260654_princeva0006_1_

Marina created a special world filled with poetic images and metaphors influenced by Old World St. Petersburg

76911892_3166706_69307763_princeva0012

Her work is populated by visions and shadows from the past.

artist-marina-printseva-14-500x503

You can tell by the delicate work and mixed media that her visions are intricate and true.

5c5125472f69eb0a46633eac6a868f63

You can find more of Marina Printseva‘s inspirational work at Marina Printseva and unique-art-by-marina-printseva.

Sunday Evening Art Gallery Blog — Richard Preston

Talented Canadian artist Richard Preston has been experimenting with textures and shapes all his life.

0_93cdc_5e894180_XL (1)

In 1979  Preston began to establish West Coast Jacket – the first in a series of military jackets.

Colorful-beadwork-by-Richard-Preston

Beading or embroidering them, he creates a different story or on every jacket.

0_93cd6_9b0b360a_L

Army clothing embroidered with the sun, clouds, scattering stars, river flows, flowers (including a lush pink wreath on the head of the skeleton symbolizing death), and  designs with a touch of psychedelic aesthetics, makes a strong and rather contradictory impression, turning each jacket – originally impersonal thing – in a unique and truly conceptual object.

0_bf794_5c50b034_XL.jpg

Preston, working with new material, draws attention to global problems, in particular, demilitarization.

0_93cdf_27011f3c_XL

Preston does not limit himself by the narrow direction in art, trying himself as a painter, sculptor, designer, photographer, writer, actor, and musician.

0_93ce0_dba2e9a4_XL

One of his hobbies was working with beads, and for nearly thirty years he made original creations, filled with real ethnic motifs and vibrant energies of the author.

0_bf792_db86b851_XL.jpg

A series “stratigraphy” is devoted to geology. With ribbons, threads and beads, the artist tried to show different periods of his work, as well as layers of different rocks of the earth tells the story of its formation.

6_eastcoast_600-8

More of Richard Preston’s work can be found at http://viola.bz/richard-prestons-textile-art/ and at http://www.prestvilleartsite.com/.

*