In the world of contemporary textile artists, the medium of thread is naturally less startling in the art world than it used to be, but even the canvas of art can be unexpected sometimes. In this case, artist Pati Reis combines freestyle machine stitching with the texture of paper, and the result is both graphically bold and wonderfully textural.
Pati picked up needlepoint from her Brazilian grandmother and American patchwork skills from her aunts, and has combined her influences into a bold, typographical style, stitched freehand on a little old sewing machine.
Her background, including a master’s degree in art and spanning Brazil, France, and the United States, inspires some of the context of her pieces. As she states, “I love using pieces of the past to create totally new things. These re-used materials—like newspapers in foreign languages—bring a deeper layer of meaning to my work.”
The designs are delightfully simple and wonderfully cheerful.
See more of Pati Reis’s charming work on her website Old News Designs.
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Gear Threads is brought to you from the offbeat gals at Urban Threads. Created by illustrator Niamh O’Connor, Urban Threads is revolutionizing machine embroidery one edgy, elegant, innovative, and/or offbeat design at a time. Discover the future of digital stitchery at www.urbanthreads.com.