Party Girls

Alaina Varrone is the Connecticut-based artist behind a wonderfully strange and cheeky collection of meticulously sewn, erotic embroidery.

Although Varrone attended the Maryland Institute College of Art and Columbia University, she is self-taught when it comes to her craft. Many of Varrone’s stitch-y subjects are unapologetically erotic in nature, something that the artist does not do in order to be considered unorthodox, but rather something she found herself drawn to after studying socio-cultural anthropology (with a minor in theology, nice) at Columbia. Deeply moved by the concept of female empowerment, Varrone started embroidering explicit nudes and erotic situations with folk art undertones. As you will see, Varrone’s work takes a delightful and somewhat demented twist on classic folk art by using modern, off-beat and risqué subject matter.

Varrone has been busy creating for well over a decade, and her more detailed pieces can take years for her to complete. According to Varrone, after a particularly traumatic breakup, her work took on a decidedly personal theme. Varrone occasionally offers some of her pieces for sale at her Etsy shop, but has found that she is no longer able to part with her more time-intensive pieces. These days Varrone keeps busy by showing her work in galleries, group shows and with freelance commissions. If you are a fan of this art-form, Varrone is also featured in the book, Material World: The Modern Craft Bible.

More from Varrone follows (ones I can’t post can be viewed, here) and could be considered NSFW. YAY!
 

Party Animals
 

 
More after the jump…

Ninja and Yolandi Visser of Die Antwoord patch
 
Somewhere in the desert just outside of Reno Nevada lives a man named Cody McElroy. McElroy looks like he set off from LA on a vision quest, made his way to Reno, and never looked back. He looks famous, a little bit like Johnny Thunders. He plays the harmonica and his tattooed arms match each of his hands. Speaking of McElroy’s hands, they spend most of their time breathing life back into the lost art of creating hand-made patches.
 

Tongue and lip patch
 
Known as Dirty Needle Embroidery, McElroy’s work possess a distinct vintage vibe, and are made with the same kind of attention to detail as their old school predecessors. According to McElroy, he sews each patch himself using a single-needle sewing machine employing a process that he calls “reverse tattooing.” Or in layman’s terms, coloring in your design first, not starting with the outline as you would with a tattoo. McElroy says each piece he makes can take anywhere from 30 minutes to more than 20 hours to finish, depending on size or its intricacies.
 

Noel Fielding of “The Might Boosh” as the “The Hitcher” patch
 
In an interview last year, McElroy spoke about his obsession with vintage patches and clothing, which started back when he was just 16. A few years later one of his friends (a guy friend for that matter) taught him how to tailor his own clothes. It was around then that McElroy started experimenting with patch making. His designs celebrate all things counter-culture and the good old-fashioned pursuit of vice. So understandably, many of McElroy’s admirers reside within the vast motorcycle community, outlaw and otherwise, in Nevada and the Pacific North West. The young artist has become a fixture at motorcycle events around the west coast since starting Dirty Needle in 2013.
 

Drug researcher patch
 
I can’t lie. I’ve been pretty obsessed with patches for most of my life. And McElroy’s unique patches bring me right back to the moment I started collecting in my early teens. If you also share my obsession, you can pick up a few of McElroy’s iron-on patches online, or request a custom order. Many images of his one-of-a-kind patches that I suddenly can’t imagine living without, follow.
 

 
More after the jump…

 
Artist Eliza Bennett has created one of the more intense feminist art projects I’ve seen. For her piece, “A woman’s work is never done,” Bennett actually embroidered crude (but strangely lovely) stitches into the skin of her own hand.  While the points of entry for the thread are tiny and superficial, they occur in such high density that her hand is left swollen and irritated, most likely from the more sensitive layer of skin attempting to reject the foreign material. The work unflinchingly examines traditionally feminine labor, and the usual matronly sweetness of embroidery is suddenly stark, biological and jarring. Her statement:

Using my own hand as a base material, I considered it a canvas upon which I stitched into the top layer of skin using thread to create the appearance of an incredibly work worn hand. By using the technique of embroidery, traditionally employed to represent femininity and applying it to the expression of it’s opposite, I hope to challenge the preconceived notion that ‘women’s work’ is light and easy. Aiming to represent the effects of hard work arising from employment in low paid ancillary jobs such as cleaning, caring, and catering, all traditionally considered to be ‘women’s work’.

The final picture below is of a video projection of Bennett’s stitched hand on fabric and wall. The image becomes gauzy though the light of the projector and that jarring photograph is suddenly rendered soft and pretty.
 

 

 

 

 
Via Beautiful Decay

 
Dangerous Minds has blogged about Daniel Kornrumpf‘s hyper-realistic embroidered portraits on linen before, but it’s been three years since he’s created any and the one pictured above, is new. Hopefully there’s more to come!

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Exquisite embroidered portraits by Daniel Kornrumpf
 
Via High Definte

 
Daniel Kornrumpf‘s embroidered portraits on linen are truly unbelievable. His work is reminiscent of the great Chuck Close, but employing such unorthodox materials. I’m blown away by the detail in his stitches and the way he’s able to mimic brush strokes.

I wonder how long it takes him to make one of these?

 
More of Daniel Kornrumpf’s portraits after the jump…

 

 
From Planet:

Embroidery never seemed as dark and suggestive as in the art of London-based Italian artist Maurizio Anzeri. In his meticulous work, he transforms old discarded family photographs into three-dimensional objects with intense psychological evocations. ?