cayce zavaglia: embroidered portraits

‘teo’  hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 12 x 34 inches

american artist cayce zavaglia considers herself a painter, yet has difficulty considering her work of embroidered portraits as painting themselves.

her realistic impressions of people are executed using crewel embroidery wool, for which over time she has created a system of sewing threads in a sequence that gives the appearance of a particular color or tone – her method of ‘mixing’ colors. threads are sewn in precise directions in order to mimic the way lines are layered in a typical drawing an allusion of depth, volume and form. throughout her series of work, the stitches have become tighter and more complex. each piece is hand embroidered and in total zavaglia has a developed 14 portraits thus far.

‘teo’ (detail) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 12 x 34 inches

‘teo’ (detail) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 12 x 34 inches

‘teo’ (front and back view) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 12 x 34 inches

‘aunt lin’ hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 16.25 x 29 inches

‘aunt lin’ (detail) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 16.25 x 29 inches

‘aunt lin’ (backside) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 16.25 x 29 inches

‘elly’  hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 14 x 17 inches

‘elly’ (detail) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 14 x 17 inches

‘elly’ (detail) hand embroidered, crewel wool and acrylic on linen 14 x 17 inches

via colossal