Through my embroideries, I explore the intersection between graphic and textile design. With these pieces, I aim to bridge the digital and analog space.

Colombian textile artist Catalina Escallon is based in New York. Her exquisite hand embroideries add colour to black and white architectural images. “I bring dimensionality to print and use embroidery to tell stories and create memories.”

What is your background in textiles?

 I am a graphic designer with masters in fashion management from FIT. From a young age, I was obsessed with textiles. I learned to sew with my mother during my first year of college and it unleashed the curiosity towards textiles. When I moved to New York in 2014, I took classes for different textile techniques and got tangled in this beautiful world. My curiosity for textiles just grew over the years and I traveled around this, meeting people, makers in this beautifully woven community, and learned from them. In New York, I did a couple of internships until one of them landed me on my first job in a textile studio. After working in the industry for five years, I found myself unemployed and at the beginning of a quarantine. I used books, online courses and everything I could get my hands on to learn about embroidery. Months of practice and meditative embroidery ended up in my first body of work.

How do you describe your work?

I started this embroidery art project in 2020 during the quarantine, and it increasingly became a conversation starter with my friends and family. People soon reached out to me about purchasing and decorating their walls with my embroidered pieces. All the art pieces have strong architectural elements paired with embroidery stitches in different colours and patterns, forming a balanced composition. I blend my colour and composition skills with my textile knowledge, techniques and bring that into her work. As an immigrant, nostalgia and sense of place take a big role in my work. Through my embroideries, I explore the intersection between graphic and textile design. With these pieces, I aim to bridge the digital and analog space. They are an invitation to touch and an exploration of various textile techniques. I try to bring dimensionality to print and use embroidery to tell stories and create memories. Removing colour is intentional; by recolouring the photograph with colourful thread, the spaces and the memories within it get to be reinvented. Color and texture make people experience and feel the moment and the photography.

How do you create a piece?

For me, embroidering on paper requires some planning, and that’s how I go about my pieces. First, I look at the photo or pattern in front of me and I evaluate it from a compositional lens to determine where would I like to embroider. Once I have that, I punch the holes, and that’s where my sketching process comes in. I like to push the envelope with pattern and blending colours, so having a sketch allows me to focus more on the colour shifting of the threads while making more complex patterns.

How long does a piece take to create?

Currently, I work on smaller formats (usually 5’’x7’’) and embroidering one on this size usually takes approximately 5-7 hours to make, depending on the density and complexity of the design. I also custom frame all of my pieces, and this process usually takes me an hour.

What is your art career highlight so far?

I have always worked for other designers, so for a while I wasn’t able to showcase my voice as a creative. When I started to embroider, it was extremely gratifying to have my work carry my voice and ultimately a part of me. I choose to embroider places that I have a connection with, so having others connect to these same places it’s such a highlight for me. It’s so powerful to see how places make us connect through different moments and memories.

www.catalinaescallon.com

https://www.instagram.com/catalinaescallon/