I love seeing faces and figures used in embroidery.

They add emotion, whimsy and personality to the work, things that aren’t easy to capture.

But as much as I find working with faces and figures difficult, so many embroidery artists love working with them – and do it well.

The more I research, the more beautiful images I find.

The human form has inspired art for centuries from early cave paintings depicting hunting scenes using a few simple gestural strokes to the grand art of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.  Let’s not forget the unique and beautiful world of Asian art and statuary.

Think then of the huge leaps made between those times to great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and his enigmatic painting, Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s tender work David, one of the most renowned works from the Renaissance and Botticelli’s famous painting The Birth of Venus.

But also think of the huge leap embroiderers took to represent faces and figures so beautifully as represented in the medieval work Opus Anglicanum, employing the strength of technique and design.  Those figures look back at us still with such poignancy and depth.

Let’s go back even further to the Bayeux Tapestry and the majesty of that regal narrative depicting 626 human figures, all men except for three women.

So this is a tribute to all those artists throughout history up till modern times, who have dared to sketch, sculpt and embroider the human form.

The following embroidery artists chose to use a needle and thread to showcase that human form or parts thereof, showing their unique skill.

Stitch Safari listeners, whether faces or figures, embroidery, patchwork or quilting, these artists capture the synergy of humanity through a gesture or a look.  They do it with flair and vivacity giving personality to each and every stitch and thread colour and that’s important because these faces and figures need to sing.

Join me now as I explore these amazing artists who can give life, energy and emotion to the human form.

The more I research for this podcast, the more I come to realise how many embroidery artists are self-taught.

Actually, I’d love to know the statistics but doubt there are any, but what it shows is an underlying passion or need for artists to want to pick up a needle and thread and simply stitch.

It’s not for fun, it’s not to say hey look at me, it’s to flesh out a vision and see that vision come to life through a medley of coloured threads and usually a very simple straight stitch – one of the easiest stitches in an embroiderer’s vocabulary.

This is indeed the case with Ukrainian embroidery artist Katerina Marchenko who stitches the most amazing studies of the human form including faces, hands and eyes using thick, expressive threads worked directly onto delicate tulle.

Already there’s a synergy there between those course thick threads and the dainty and airy tulle.

There’s no pattern, no complex drawing, just a simple outline, intuition and improvisation.  But what’s truly interesting is that Marchenko doesn’t fill the entire space with stitch, choosing to leave some areas voided yet other areas are filled with the crisscrossed texture of highly dimensional, coloured threads.

Many of Marchenko’s embroideries are stitched in a hoop, but in 2021 Marchenko began working on much larger, wall-hung embroideries that pop with her great use of colour, texture and value.

The threads are bold and thick and the colours are daring and adventurous but the resulting texture is without question, absolutely gorgeous.

Butterflies and flowers are recurring themes for Marchenko, positioned delicately across bodies, eyes and hands.

These pieces are larger than life yet Marchenko brings a sense of realism and dynamism to these embroideries through their size and scale.  They are impactful making a very strong statement.

This embroidery is audacious and Marchenko herself comments on it as a meditative process, one that calms her down allowing her to gather her thoughts.  I often come across this sentiment.

Think I’m finished with Katerina Marchenko, well think again.

This artist is quite amazing.  As a commentary on our throw-away society, Marchenko collaborated with Armenian artist Artashes Sardarian to create embroidered art worked into the centre of broken vintage plates.

Using the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery called Kintsugi – literally translated as ‘gold seams’, the broken pieces are glued back together using a Japanese lacquer that is then painted with gold or silver powder.

The result is a body of work that is intriguing and innovative.  Hands appear to emerge from behind the repaired plates and drip downwards emphasising by trailing threads or highly textured eyes that seem to stare back at the viewer cleverly incorporating just a hint of the colour of the surrounding plate.

Clever, unique embroidery art that would be well worth looking at for future reference.  Katerina Marchenko embroidery artist and Artashes Sardarian.

As ever, I like to juxtapose work that’s highly different when I use a blanket topic such as Embroidered Faces and Figures, so I’m moving on to the work of Russian-born Textile Artist, Galla Grotto.

The website Create Whimsy, an arena for builders, makers, crafters and creators, offers an in-depth interview with Grotto who as an interior designer was used to working with textiles to add warmth, comfort and originality in her interior designs.

This is an artist who likes to work in a series using myths, images and symbols with a gallery of heroines, goddesses, fairies, muses and female images as inspiration.

Grotto’s art education gives her the freedom to interpret her creativity with the recurring theme of female images in her work.  Her style is compared to the Cubist movement and the likes of Picasso.

Now I’m going to focus on just one of her works titled Mother Earth which tells the story of the mother of the earth who lives above the clouds and sheds tears, the water of life, nourishing the earth, the animals and the people.

Having dreamt of a sad woman, Grotto quickly drew and deformed the face she called Mother Earth stating that not everything is harmonious or beautiful.

Using self-dyed fabrics and abandoning the standard rectangular shape Grotto dangled threads from this angular piece to further enhance the impression of freedom and infinity.

There are hundreds of pieces of fabric used in this art quilt, with a good range of values to enhance its interest and complexity.  Each piece of fabric appears to be quilted differently.

There’s a sense of pathos and sadness in this work, yet it holds the viewer’s eye and it seems that the sad eyes have become a recurring element in Grotto’s work.

So, if you like the idea of abstracting faces, then check out Galla Grotto’s work.

Now moving onto something completely different yet again and the colourful and highly textured work of South African embroiderer, Danielle Clough.

Visit her website danielleclough.com for a tour-de-force of highly saturated, mesmerising colour used so creatively and expressively to showcase the human face and other themes too.

I look at Danielle’s work with sheer joy.  For instance, one close-up of a face appears to use a lime-green ground covered by sketcherly straight stitches in a plethora of bright, vibrant colours to create features that burst with energy.  Scattered with a few French Knots and Cross-Stitches that look almost like hundreds and thousands atop a luscious cake, they embody the playfulness and supreme confidence Danielle employs in her use of colour and texture.

Some embroideries are worked onto patterned fabric backgrounds, now that shows a wonderful sense of design and skill.

Danielle acknowledges her love of colour in an interview with Creative Boom in 2023 and is something she appears to use instinctively.  Most work begins with an image that’s mapped onto a surface for stitching.  Sometimes this includes stitching directly onto a tennis racquet.

Danielle’s quest is for happiness and surely she has found it in her colourfully expressive embroidered art.

Her work exudes happiness and a sense of sheer delight.

All in all, Danielle Clough is an artist to research especially if colour and faces are in your embroidery vocabulary.

Now onto the wonderfully maternal, lovingly expressive work of UK-based embroidery artist, Melissa Emerson.

What I didn’t realise until I read an interview with Melissa featured in TextileArtist.com under the topic Recycled Textile Art: More to Love, is that her work features recycled elements such as fruit netting, bin bags, bubble wrap and caution tape.

Melissa says, ‘I have an inherent need to document my motherhood experiences and feelings.  In this piece, the netting is vibrant in colour and features strength and containment.  It replicates my own protectiveness, strength and fragility as a mother.  The netting can also be easily pulled apart and has areas of transparency, creating a further narrative exploring my vulnerability and fragility.’

If you haven’t already gathered by now, Melissa Emerson’s inspiration revolves around her identity as a Mother, her subject, her beautiful child.

Sometimes the embroidery is worked on dissolveable fabric and then attached separately, other times it’s stitched directly onto the surface of the work.

This is loving hand embroidery exploring a theme that evolves every day as her child grows and changes.

It’s not just endearing, it’s clever, imaginative and highly creative embroidery.

Onto yet another self-taught embroiderer, poet and painter, Cathy Cullis whose work I discovered on Instagram.

Cathy creates delightfully embroidered figurative pictures and dolls.

Having studied English and Art much of her work includes text, and often inspiration comes from an old novel and the meaning of certain phrases, showcasing her love of history, art history, memory, folk art, nostalgia, design, fashion, animation and Medieval churches.  These influences shine through in Cathy’s work.

Significantly, her use of colour is subtle, often monochromatic, creating ethereal figures and complex textures using her sewing machine.

Her work is usually highly detailed and full of people quietly representing the relationships between the figures in her embroideries – the fact that it’s often linked to text makes it even more interesting to me.

I’m going to finish with American embroiderer Ruth Miller, whose work I had not seen before.

This is powerful embroidery from an artist who was trained to use lines as a descriptive element.

Impressed by Japanese woodblock prints and their use of line, pattern and colour, Ruth worked to emulate these valuable elements.

Recognising the importance of telling a story as opposed to simply representing various objects or subjects, Ruth learned to create a narrative.

Photo imagery and line drawings begin her process where Ruth has substituted wool thread for painted brushstrokes, often portraying African-American subjects.

There’s a stunning embroidery worked in 1985 titled Elegba, that combines Ruth’s love of pattern, colour and line.  Stitch direction and subtle changes of colour appear alongside strong vibrant colour contrasts creating a truly memorable piece of embroidery art.

A completely different work, Teacup Fishing from 2013, shows a love of beauty and subtle colouring offering a sense of timelessness.  Another work Congregants, does the same but shows Ruth’s expressive use of colour and ability to mix colour.

Remember, these embroideries are all worked using a straight stitch and masterful colour mixing.  The faces are emotive and highly expressive.

If faces and figures rendered in a simple straight stitch tick your box, then Ruth Miller is an artist to study.

Before I go I thought I’d share some sources of figural inspiration with you.  All are very different artists, and are, in my opinion, well worth researching for a deeper dive into the world of faces and figures.

Research the art of Ludmilla Curilova, Yulia Luchkina, Tina Cassati, LS Lowry, Mary Macdonald Mackintosh, Chuck Close and Frida Khalo.

I’m in awe of what these embroidery artists can do with a needle and thread and a face and figure, but there are so many more creating work of this standard – embroidery that makes you want to take a second, third and even a fourth look.

Why not give faces and figures a go?  These artists did and look where they are now.