St. Louis based artist Cayce Zavaglia (covered here) hand-embroiders portraits of family and friends using wool thread. Her technique is surprisingly painterly and realistic, mimicking the effect of oil painting, her first discipline. Zavaglia recently debuted a new series of both hand-embroidered portraits and paintings based on the reverse images of her embroideries. Titled “About-Face”, her new work is now on view at Lyons Wier Gallery in Chelsea, New York. From the front, her embroidered works appear meticulously sewn, but when flipped over, they reveal a more gestured and haphazard beauty. This sparked a newfound inspiration to create alternative versions of her portraits as paintings. “The backs of tapestries and embroideries have historically been hidden from the viewer,” she told Hi-Fructose in an email. “My show is an attempt to show both sides, and address the two sides we each posses: the presented and private self.” Take a look at some of Cayce Zavaglia’s works for the show below.
Malaysian artist Umibaizurah Mahir's meticulously crafted ceramics are almost exclusively in the form of stylized, comical creatures, like three dimensional hand-made cartoons. The complex psychology of her collectible "toys for adults” places them at the intersection of man, society and nature, where nothing is what it seems. Like Collodi's "Pinocchio", these naughty objects are often on the run, trying to escape on hand-painted ceramic wheels and wings, climbing their pedestals or breaking out of their frames.
Portland based artist