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Textile Artist Creates Nature-Inspired Embroidery Art That “Grows” Beyond Its Frame

By Emma Taggart on January 25, 2018

Plant Life Textile Art by Ana Teresa Barboza

“Read the Landscape” series

The ancient art of embroidery has made a resurgence lately, and contemporary textile artists around the world continue to come up with innovative ways to reinvent the craft. One artist to do so is Peru-based textile artist Ana Teresa Barboza, who creates colorful embroidery art that depicts natural forms, found in plant life and landscapes. Her three-dimensional work often spills out from the confines of the embroidery hoop or canvas she’s working on, illustrating the sprawling growth of the organic subjects. Barboza’s latest work continues to push the boundaries of embroidery by incorporating different disciplines, such as illustration and photography.

Barboza’s 2017 Immersion collection features illustrations of plant life printed with single-color hues of natural dye on cotton. The artist then adds textile fringes and weaves by stitching long threads into the illustrations, which often hang loosely, or are held up elegantly by a wooden rod. Her Read the Landscape series merges landscape photography with textile art. One tactile piece features fragmented images of a lush jungle environment, that appears to have been overrun by colorful woven yarn. In another, thread from an embroidered lake emerges from the photo, as the viewer’s eye is lead to each of their yarn spools, attached to the gallery wall.

The Increase series similarly explores the natural world with overflowing textile fringes, flowing from embroidered tapestries. Each piece depicts the movement of a plant’s shadow over the space of two weeks, with balls of yarn gathered at the base, perhaps depicting the plant’s roots. Barboza explains, “The embroidery in these pieces was made from drawings made with the shadow of the plant for 15 days, visualizing its growth and movement. The embroidery is growing and the tangles in the pieces make evident the constant transformation of nature.”

Find more of Barboza’s work on her website.