Michelle Kingdom combines drawing and embroidery, creating tiny, complicated narratives using a needle and thread. With a background in fine art, embroidery seemed like the perfect tool to convey her thoughts and feelings.
“Embroidery became my own private refuge,” she explained in an interview with Textile Artist. “The effects of embroidery seemed otherworldly and captured my imagination as the perfect way to explore secret thoughts.”
Using embroidery was also a way to both honor and undermine the tradition of needlework that came before her. “Embroidery also comes with a lot of baggage,” said Kingdom. “It has often been dismissed and overlooked; perceived as decorative, a school-girl craft, fussily old-fashioned, small.”
It’s this notion precisely that drew Kingdom to it. “It’s deceptively pretty, unapologetically female, traditional and naive,” she says. “It speaks in tiny whispers, and only those that care to listen can hear it. My work tries to capture murky ideas brewing around in my head, and the evocative nature of figures in stitch better conveys those ideas than other mediums can.”
Her embroidered landscapes might be tiny, but their effect is palpable. Here are some of our favorite pieces by her.
