Paint and thread have more in common than you might think. Beyond the fact that one is wet and the other dry, a brushstroke is surprisingly similar to a stitch. On their own, the individual marks may not mean much, but together they create works of art. Textile artist Kathrin Marchenko highlights their easy kinship in her stunning embroidery titled Beyond the Bridge, which reimagines the spirit of a Claude Monet painting in thread on framed tulle.
Marchenko’s Beyond the Bridge showcases an idyllic scene of water lilies beneath a curved passageway, referencing Monet’s Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies. The piece is a monumental size, measuring 110 × 280 centimeters (3.6 x 9.2 feet). “I built the image through many layers of color and stitch, using wool and mohair threads in a wide range of blues, greens, turquoise, violet, and warmer highlights,” the artist explains to My Modern Met.
“I was particularly interested in the softness and dimensional quality of these fibers,” she continues, “they catch the light differently and give the surface an almost atmospheric, painterly quality. The direction and density of the stitches were especially important to me, they allow the surface to shift depending on the light and the viewer’s position, almost like reflections moving across water.”
While there is an obvious connection to Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, Marchenko chose to lean into the spirit of the original rather than copy it directly. “When translating the atmosphere of Monet into embroidery, I wasn’t interested in reproducing the painting stitch by stitch,” Marchenko says. “I wanted to preserve the feeling of light, movement, reflection, and the almost dreamlike quality of the landscape, while allowing the thread itself to create a completely different surface and visual language.”
Marvel at Marchenko’s Beyond the Bridge below, then check out Nymphéas Beyond, another recent work inspired by Monet.
Textile artist Kathrin Marchenko highlights the easy kinship between painting and stitching in her stunning embroidery, Beyond the Bridge.
The monumental piece reimagines the spirit of a Claude Monet painting in thread on framed tulle.
“I built the image through many layers of color and stitch, using wool and mohair threads in a wide range of blues, greens, turquoise, violet, and warmer highlights,” the artist explains to My Modern Met.
While there is an obvious connection to Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies, Marchenko chose to lean into the spirit of the original rather than copy it directly.
“I wanted to preserve the feeling of light, movement, reflection, and the almost dreamlike quality of the landscape, while allowing the thread itself to create a completely different surface and visual language.”
Watch Marchenko work on Beyond the Bridge:
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