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Embroidery and Fine Art


Ana Teresa Barboza "Read the Landscape" series

The word textile comes from Latin, which means "to weave", "to braid" or to "construct". The practice of weaving was invented as early as 27,000 years ago, it is one of the oldest forms of human technology. 



The term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery, a concept that was changed during the romantic period of the nineteenth century, when art was seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science". (Gombrich, E, 2005) The term textile art is now used to describe textile-based ornaments that are not used in practical applications.

Textile art, including fabrics, embroidery, tapestries, fiber arts, and carpet design. In the last century, it has returned to the art world, by artists who blurred the boundaries between textile and art. Especially, feminist artists around 1907s challenged the difference between textiles and fine arts. Their artworks embraced techniques such as stitching and sewing, which were regarded as "women's crafts" in the old days.

There are six specialisms in textile, which are Felted, Printed, Knitted, Embroidered,  Woven, Mixed Media Textiles and Soft Systems Textiles*. The simplest art of textiles is felting, which is made by rolling up a small amount of wool and stabbing it with a needle to merge the wools together and shape it by hands or molds. Whereas the most interesting and attractive one is the Soft systems Textiles It focuses on the development of smart textiles (technology innovation) and soft materials (fibers, filaments, yarns, gels, liquids, coatings, moldable materials, and flexible films, virtual materials). They are questioning the materiality of our lives and pioneering new ways of thinking. They are also new ways to challenge the boundaries of the digital and physical world through emerging fabrication technologies. 

Embroidery has had a resurgence over the past few years, and artists are continually pushing it in new directions. There are contemporary fine artists such as Ana Teresa Barboza and Severija Incirauskaite-Kriauneviciene who are trying to explore embroidery from a new perspective. They prefer to work on non-traditional canvases or metal objects such as plates and shovel.


Reference
Gombrich, Ernst. "Press statement on The Story of Art". The Gombrich Archive, 2005.

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