Cayce Zavaglia "Embroidered Portraits"
Lyons Wier Gallery
This event has ended.
Originally trained as a painter, Zavaglia switched to embroidery after the birth of her daughter to avoid using toxic materials around her home. Zavaglia's portraits of friends and family are sewn with crewel embroidery wool on linen, and the use of paint is limited to the background only. From a distance the portraits read as photo-realistic paintings, only after closer inspection does the work's true construction reveal itself.
Over the last 12 years the artist has developed a complex sewing technique allowing her to blend colors and establish tonalities that remarkably resemble classic oil painting techniques. The direction in which the threads are sewn mimic the way brush marks are layered on paintings, allowing the allusion of depth, volume and form. Her stitches evoke an evocative feeling of flesh, hair and cloth that brings the subject to life.
Each piece takes nearly a year to compete and it is during this painstaking process that the artist begins to develop an intimate and revealing portrait of the sitter, moving beyond Photo Realism and into the realm of what we call Conceptual Realism. The work has the remarkable ability to conceptually transport the viewer in the emotional make-up of the sitter, creating a dialogue between each piece and its audience.
Media
Schedule
from November 17, 2011 to December 17, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-11-17 from 18:00 to 20:00