Motif: by Chris de Bode
Type: Photo embroidery
Technique: Ercigoj stitch
Year: 2014 - ongoing
Edition: Limited (10)

Size: Medium
Dimension: 80 x 80 cm | 31.5 x 31.5 in
Number of stitches: over 2 mio
Thread length: over 24 km | over 14.9 mi
Thread colours: 75
Development: over 400 person hours

Price: on request

Also available in:
  • 100 x 100 cm | 39.4 x 39.4 in, limited edition (5)

About the artwork

Female beauty merging with the beauty of nature is vividly represented in this subtle embroidery. The force of gravity can be this beautiful – in the background, a waterfall is dropping, and in the foreground, her hair is falling.

About the artist

Chris de Bode is drawn to dramatic stories of people, especially children. His photographic work was commissioned by several non-governmental organisations like Save the Children, Aids Funds/Stop Aids Now, MSF, Greenpeace, VSO, CARE, Oxfam, Cordaid and also several UN branches like UNFPA, UNHCR and WHO. He is also acknowledged author of documentary films. He has broad experience in mentoring workshops in several countries educating photographers on all levels focusing on story telling in pictures. A winner of first prize World Press Photo award. Born 1965 in the Netherlands.

Based on an exclusive licence agreement with Ercigoj, five of his best photographs were monumentalized in Ercigoj stitch technique. They encompass a wide range of motifs, from art to documentary photography. Each one is available in limited edition in different sizes. Each one comes with a Certificate of authenticity, hand signed by de Bode.

Features

Innovation of layering

We layer multiple colours of threads and so create rich embroidery and colour texture that is impossible to create with classic one-layer embroidery technique. By layering, we develop colour transitions and shadowing, by which we create multiple-colour surfaces, similar to pointillism painting.

Smooth transitions and shading

By intertwining threads of endless colours and creating colour transitions, we can shape soft shadows, make one surface transition into another and mix colours into an endless multitude of hues. This way, we can also recreate motives from photographs and sophisticated art paintings which wouldn’t be possible with classic embroidery technique, using vector surfaces.

Sophisticated colour calibration

Usually in embroidery, 10 or 20, maybe 30 colours of threads are used. We use around 1,000 colour hues and if a colour still doesn’t match the desired one, we create it by layering and colour transitions. We have digitally scanned colours of all threads by using a spectrograph, so we can colour match any colour from an original material or from CMYK, RGB or Pantone colour schemes.