Type: Photo embroidery
Technique: Ercigoj stitch
Year: 2014 - ongoing
Edition: Limited (10)
Size: Medium
Dimension: 68 x 101 cm | 26.8 x 39.8 in
Number of stitches: over 2.4 mio
Thread length: over 28 km | over 17.4 mi
Thread colours: 93
Development: over 500 person hours
Price: on request
Also available in:
- 54 x 80 cm | 21.3 x 31.5 in, limited edition (10)
- 100 x 148 cm | 39.4 x 58.3 in, limited edition (5)
About the artwork
Original motif for this embroidery was done by Steve McCurry, one of the finest National Geographic magazine photographers. “I think the best way to actually photograph somebody is to really look them into their eyes,” its author Steve McCurry once said. “The eyes are so expressive, they say so much about a person.” The look of the girl with a green shawl tells her story – a story of a girl running from war. Portraits like this are especially demanding to recreate as an embroidery, since a lot of effort must be put in the delicate skin tones and shading.
About the artist
Steve McCurry is one of the greatest icons of modern photography. On a quest for amazing photographs, he travels the world, Asia being his most common destination. » Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition,« he once stated.
Born in 1950 in Philadelphia. A recipient of numerous accolades, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association; the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal; two first-places in the World Press Photo contest and Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting. His most recognized portrait, ’Afghan Girl’ was named as “the most recognized photograph” in the history of the National Geographic magazine for which he regularly contributes.
Based on an exclusive licence agreement, ten of his exquisite works were monumentalized in Ercigoj stitch technique. Each piece is available in three sizes as a limited edition that comes with a Certificate of authenticity hand signed by Steve McCurry.
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.