Cutting & Stitching Edge

The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Megan Hansen-Knarhoi

by Mr X on 18 April 2013

Contemporary embroidery art via Mr X Stitch

Megan Hansen-Knarhoi is a textile artist from New Zealand.

“Megan Hansen-Knarhoi is a contemporary New Zealand artist working predominantly in sculpture and site specific installation, investigating iconography, signs and symbols. Her work celebrates, scrutinises and satirises aspects of Christianity, creating friction between the sacred and profane, the positive and the negative, the beautiful and the ugly, and the physical and the cerebral. Her concepts are intertwined in the materials and rituals of the artworks she creates.

“Through the repetitive and obsessive-compulsive aspect of her work, certain rituals and beliefs are ex, posed as empty arbitrary and absurd. The discipline of making is confused with obsession, making the ritual in a sense obsolete and meaningless but ironically, by its very devotion and proliferation, profound.”

I find these works to be incredibly powerful. The technique of constructing the work is really dramatic and adds gravitas to the work.

The pieces feel like real-life Gods appearing before us, as though we were in a Guillermo Del Toro film. Amazing and, quite frankly, rather unsettling. It’s great stuff.

Visit Megan’s website to see more of her work. It’s excellent.

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The Cutting & Stitching Edge is brought to you in association with PUSH: Stitchery, the must-have embroidered art book by Mr X Stitch !

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The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Lauren Van Der Kolk

by Mr X on 11 April 2013

Contemporary embroidery art via Mr X Stitch

Lauren Van Der Kolk is an embroidery artist from the Netherlands.

“Lauren is a creative all-rounder, and tries to make a combination of the different academies she has followed. “Creatives of our time go beyond specialize within a discipline, the lines between the different directions are so thin, and creativity connect them” says Lauren.

“Lauren is now working under the name LVDK. where she is focused on her project “the lady who sew” since June 2012. The sketches are on paper, fashion oriented, elaborated on the sewing machine. The treats are hanging outside of the passepatout, creating an exciting lines. “I love the fragile, the simple line of the form translated, they are always women, much more attractive to draw, and beautiful forms.”

This kind of work seems to be pretty trendy right now. Artists like Marloes Duyker and Nike Schroeder have similar approaches, taking machine embroidery and creating vivid forms with them. It’s great to see this method of embroidery successfully make the jump to commercial embroidery and it can only help push against the traditional paradigms about stitching.

The dangling threads add an element of decay, and bring motion to the piece. I find my feelings chop and change with these works. Sometimes they capture me, and sometimes they leave me cold. I guess that makes them art. Either way, they are pretty cool and I’ll be interested to how Lauren’s journey evolves.

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The Cutting & Stitching Edge is brought to you in association with PUSH: Stitchery, the must-have embroidered art book by Mr X Stitch !

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The Cutting (& Stitching) Edge – Sue Walton

by Mr X on 28 March 2013

Contemporary embroidery art via Mr X Stitch

Sue Walton is a fibre artist from Suffolk, England.

“My passion as a textile artist is driven by the texture and tactile nature of the materials themselves and the seemingly limitless ways in which they can be worked. With an underpinning of traditional techniques, I exploit the manipulative properties of fibres and combine them with unexpected and widely contrasting materials.

“Influenced by flora and carvings, I produce high relief works incorporating both hand and machine stitch. The manipulative properties of creating felt by hand, incorporating silks and synthetic fabrics within it, and introducing wire, glass, beads and unusual objects gives me control of the surface texture whilst still allowing an element of distortion in the stylized flower forms. When necessary I dye the fabrics and threads, although I enjoy using a natural colour pallet to emphasize the surface texture. Glass as a form of containment adds an element of ‘preciousness’ to my work, producing a Victorian eclectic style with a contemporary twist.

“City and Guilds trained and having previously taught in Adult Education in Suffolk, I now devote my time to exhibiting, both nationally and internationally. I am a member of the Suffolk Craft Society and I sell my work through shops and galleries.”

I first came across Sue’s work at the 2012 Knitting & Stitching Show, where she had produced the Jabberwocky installation with Ann Small. Influenced by Lewis Carroll, but with a twist of Tim Burton, their stand was one of the stars of the show, with a magnificent range of pieces displaying with edgy style and gaudy grace.

Sue’s work brings forth magical natural beings, plants that wouldn’t seem out of place in the world of Labyrinth (the film, not the musician) and I find them utterly enchanting. I bought one of Sue’s creations – a needle felted worm, created with a vintage fork and a massive glass bead – and it’s definitely one of the most original pieces in my collection.

Sue’s latest work, included as part of Yulia Badian’s Woodland Boudoir at the Spring Knitting & Stitching Show, was another range of curious foliage and flower creations. It’s as though she has a portal to another world that she visits, collecting new plant forms to share with us. I think they are fantastic, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.