Chloe Giordano is part illustrator, part embroiderer. “I’m always a bit torn between referring to my work as ‘illustration’ or ‘embroidery’,” she admitted in an interview with Textile Artist.
“Having gone into it with the mindset of an illustrator and having no background in traditional crafts, and yet I spend too much time playing around with fabric and sewing needles to feel I can entirely say I’m an illustrator – but I like to think that’s what people find interesting about my art, that it is in a space between embroidery and painting.”
Indeed, it was during the last year of her illustration degree that Giordano took to sewing, experimenting with freehand needle painting. Freehand means there is no prior pattern on which she bases her work, meaning she herself illustrates her pieces before going on to sew them. Using sewing thread and hand-dyed fabrics, her creations can take between one day and several weeks to complete.
“I think I fell in love with the tactile nature of sewing and working with fabric, but I don’t regret any of the hours spent drawing as it informs how I work now,” she says. “I find I get a sense of satisfaction from working with textiles that I never had with 2D mediums.”
Her initial embroidery work was based on much trial and error. “Although I’ve always loved art, I didn’t have any particular interest in textile arts when I was growing up, nor did I have any close relatives who did,” she explained. “When I started sewing near the end of my degree it was the first time I’d picked up a needle in years and I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. But I have always loved to draw and spent a lot of time drawing animals and exploring nature, and I think I’ve come back round to this in my current work.”
Take a look at some of her imaginative work in the gallery below.
