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Sculptural Embroideries on Wood by Nosheen Iqbal Translate Architectural Motifs into Thread

by Aurelia Butler 18 June 2025, 21:17

“Botanical Allegory 11.” All images courtesy of Nosheen Iqbal, shared with permission

Sculptural Embroideries on Wood by Nosheen Iqbal Translate Architectural Motifs into Thread

June 18, 2025

ArtCraft

Grace Ebert

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Semicircles notched into smooth wooden panel structure Nosheen Iqbal’s floral embroideries. Laying colorful lines with impeccable precision, the Dallas-based artist (previously) creates vivid arabesques and geometric motifs that resemble those of her Pakistani and Islamic heritage.

Iqbal is interested in the interplay of light and shadow, which tends to be most prominent in the sunless sides of the three-dimensional forms. Delineating petals and leaves with small beads bolsters, their surfaces glimmering when illuminated. “As light moves across my pieces, it enhances the saturation of colors and emphasizes the intricate threadwork, shifting and revealing new dimensions,” she says.

“Botanical Allegory”

Evoking architecture, her series Botanical Allegory features several works with rounded edges and arch-like shapes. Blending ancient design and craft traditions mirrors the artist’s desire to bring seemingly disparate mediums, techniques, and ideas together. “Living in the West while holding Eastern heritage has driven me to innovate—merging elements from different art movements to create a blend that honors my roots while embracing new influences,” she adds.

Galleri Urbane in Dallas will show a collection of Iqbal’s works in the group exhibition roll the windows down from June 21 to August 8. Find more from the artist on Instagram.

Detail of “Botanical Allegory 5”

“Botanical Allegory 15”

Detail of “Botanical Allegory 14”

“Botanical Allegory 1”

Detail of “Botanical Allegory 1”

“Botanical Allegory 5” in progress

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Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives
by Aurelia Butler 8 May 2025, 15:30
Detail of “City Girls” (2025), yarn, acrylic, and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 102 x 168 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries, shared with permission
Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives
May 8, 2025
ArtCraft
Kate Mothes
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On large swaths of colorful mesh, Kandy G. Lopez embroiders large-scale portraits of people from historically marginalized communities. “Her works are created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture,” says a statement.
Drawing on her Afro-Caribbean ancestry, the Fort Lauderdale-based artist celebrates the style, culture, and heritage of individuals as a way to build connections and generate dialogue around representation.
“R² – Roscoe and Reggie” (2024), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 90 x 60 inches
Lopez began working with mesh and fiber almost ten years ago, but she began to approach it more seriously as a major tenet of her practice in 2021 while an artist-in-residence at The Hambidge Center in Georgia. “As a painter, my backgrounds were minimal. Sometimes they would have monochromatic cityscapes,” Lopez tells Colossal, “So, leaving the background rare is something I’m familiar with.”
Visibility, presence, and representation are vital to the artist’s work. In each composition, she centers vibrantly dressed, life-size figures so their gazes directly meet the viewer. Through the use of material and metaphor — like layered threads suggesting how BIPOC individuals “disappear and reappear” — she intertwines notions of community, resilience, and narrative. “I love the connections and stories that the individuals tell but also how the stories narrate the material,” she says.
The gridded backgrounds evoke associations with neighborhood street patterns and the overlapping layers of woven warp and weft. “I also love the metaphor in transparency, layers, and vulnerability,” the artist says, sharing that she sometimes still incorporates cityscapes painted onto the mesh.
Lopez is represented by ACA Galleries. See more on her website and Instagram.
“Reyna” (2025), yarn and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 96 x 60 inches
“City Girls” (2025), yarn, acrylic, and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 102 x 168 inches
“Rohan” (2023), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 96 x 60 inches
“Miami” (2025), yarn and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 96 x 60 inches
“Rohan” (2023), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 96 x 60 inches
Detail of “Reyna”
Installation view of “Tayina”
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With 60 Artists, ‘The Golden Thread’ Weaves Together a Survey of Contemporary Fiber Art
by Aurelia Butler 17 April 2025, 14:56
Ana María Hernando, “El intento del agua/The Intent of Water” (2025), tulle, wood, metal lattice, felt, velvet. All images courtesy of BravinLee, shared with permission
With 60 Artists, ‘The Golden Thread’ Weaves Together a Survey of Contemporary Fiber Art
April 17, 2025
ArtCraft
Grace Ebert
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The monumental textile exhibition that took over an 18th-century warehouse last spring is back for a second iteration.
In the South Street Seaport area of Manhattan, The Golden Thread 2: A Fiber Art Show returns with more than 100 artworks made by 60 artists from around the globe. As with the first iteration, this reprisal includes eight site-specific installations that respond to the former mercantile space.
Tomo Mori, “(we) keep going” (2025), donated fabrics, used clothes and linens, acrylic and cotton fillings, and anodized aluminum wires
Organized by BravinLee, The Golden Thread is a sweeping survey of contemporary fiber art encompassing a vast array of materials, aesthetics, and subject matter. Several artists connect textiles’ historical association with femininity and domesticity, including Ana María Hernando’s pair of cascading tulle works. Frequently working with the gossamer fabric, Hernando sees her sculptures as an act of rebellion in which “softness becomes less a discreet quality and more a function of power, both formally and symbolically.”
Similarly, Diana Weymar presents “American Sampler,” a collection of embroidered, typographic works made during a five-year period. Created to showcase a woman’s skill and literacy throughout the 18th century, samplers have a long history as sites of feminine expression. Weymar draws on this legacy for this patchwork tapestry, which is part of her ongoing Tiny Pricks Project created in 2018 in response to Donald Trump’s tumultuous first term.
Colossal readers will recognize several artists in this second exhibition, including Caitlin McCormack, Rima Day, Willie Cole, and Ulla-Stina Wikander. The Golden Thread is on view through May 16.
Tiny Pricks Project (Diana Weymar), “American Sampler” (2020-2025), vintage textiles and cotton floss
Detail of Tiny Pricks Project (Diana Weymar), “American Sampler” (2020-2025), vintage textiles and cotton floss
Caitlin McCormack, “Babylon Rec Room,” vintage wallpaper on salvaged drywall with crochet cotton string and glue embellishment
Ali Dipp, “Concession No 3 (Trumbull, Capitol)” (2024), manually stitched threads on denim jeans, 79 x 117 inches
Left: Fran Siegel, “Medicine Wheel” (2020), cyanotype, scrim, embroidery, sewing, string, and mounted on bar, 90 x 60 x 10 inches. Right: Manju Shandler, “The Elephant in the Room” (2024), mixed media soft sculpture, 6 x 6 x 9 feet
Traci Johnson. Left: “Lil Femme,” yarn on cloth, 12.5 x 22 inches. Right: “Love Me in a Place Where There’s no Space or Time” (2023), yarn on cloth, 7.5 x 7.2 feet
Sam Dienst, “Clutter Conundrum” (2024), hand-woven tapestry with yarn, beads, paint, and felt, 56 x 57 x .25 inches
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Delight in Heather Rios’s Delectable Cakes Made from Polymer Clay and Embroidery
by Aurelia Butler 17 March 2025, 12:26
All images courtesy of Heather Rios, shared with permission
Delight in Heather Rios’s Delectable Cakes Made from Polymer Clay and Embroidery
March 17, 2025
ArtCraftFood
Kate Mothes
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While Heather Rios’s slices of layer cake look ready to stick a fork into, you may want to think twice. Formed of polymer clay and finished with embroidery, the artist pairs the sweets with a vintage plate—and sometimes a fork—in playful trompe l’oeils.
Enveloped in realistic frosting and decorated with berries, blossoms, and sprinkles, each work evokes pieces you’d be ready to dig into at a birthday or wedding. Rios meticulously embroiders each sponge element, fashioning patterned layers in thread on a hoop before transferring the finished panel to the sculpture.
In addition to freestanding forms, Rios embellishes small paintings with shallow reliefs of cakes on canvas, emphasizing vibrant color and the fluffy texture of the exposed interiors.
Many of Rios’s cakes would be exceedingly difficult to achieve in reality, like detailed floral designs or motifs from blue-and-white porcelain. Lucky for us, we can have our cake and keep it, too. Find more on the artist’s Instagram, and purchase a slice from her Etsy shop.
A sponge embroidery in progress
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Melissa Calderón Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured Thread
by Aurelia Butler 13 March 2025, 13:06
“Out Here (we is)” (2025), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches. All images courtesy of Melissa Calderón, shared with permission
Melissa Calderón Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured Thread
March 13, 2025
ArtCraft
Grace Ebert
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On expanses of beige linen, Melissa Calderón immortalizes pockets of a neighborhood or domestic space. Combining imagery from her childhood in the Bronx with her family’s native Puerto Rico, the artist translates familiar landscapes and sights into vivid embroideries, preserving her memories in thread.
The intimate compositions capture how neighborhoods and communities change, particularly as long-time residents are displaced. Her current body of work, titled Gentrified Landscapes, explores “a place that once was but is now between the two spurts of gentrified-led divestment and revitalization and how this particularly affects the Bronx and Puerto Rico.”
“Villa Nueva (I’d Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon)” (2024), cotton, nylon, and chenille hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inches
Calderón embraces the potential of thread to add texture and emphasize the more conceptual elements of her work. “Villa Nueva (I’d Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon),” for example, drapes soft, green chenille across the composition like a lush cluster of vines. “Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series” features a green sofa unraveling into tangled fibers that spill off the canvas.
In her studio, Calderón focuses on the meditative, entrancing process of stitching. Works begin with a drawing that’s transferred to a pattern and freehand rendered onto the linen. She enjoys the slow, methodical movements, which remind her “of times I sewed with my grandmother, making Cabbage Patch Kids clothes to sell on the playground before school started for the day. Embroidery takes me to a calm place where only the process matters.”
Currently, Calderón is working on a few commissions and preparing for a solo exhibition in Puerto Rico. She also recently began a large-scale work titled “Bodega Miles” that will stretch 40 inches wide and take more than a year to complete. You can follow her progress on Instagram.
“Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series” (2023), cotton and satin thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches
A work in progress
“Coming Soon” (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches
“El Tiempo Muerto (The Dead Times)” (2023), cotton, and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inches
Detail of “Coming Soon” (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches
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Adrienna Matzeg’s Punch Needle Embroideries Conjure Nostalgic Summer Road Trips
by Aurelia Butler 19 February 2025, 10:00
“The Afterglow” and “Catch of the Day.” All images courtesy of Adrienna Matzeg and Tacit Collective, shared with permission
Adrienna Matzeg’s Punch Needle Embroideries Conjure Nostalgic Summer Road Trips
February 19, 2025
ArtCraft
Kate Mothes
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No matter where the map directs you, a road trip usually conjures some key elements that make it unique from any other kind of journey. Think quirky roadside attractions, diners, spontaneous snack stops, scenic views, national parks—the list goes on!
For Adrienna Matzeg, summertime trips inspire a new series of punch needle embroidery works (previously) in a collection titled The Scenic Route, now available through Tacit Collective.
“Lick-A-Treat”
The Toronto-based artist merges her interests in photography, textiles, and design to create vibrant, narrative embroidery compositions. “Through reducing the subject matter in her work to simplified colours, shapes, and fragments, she explores how we recall memories, with a specific interest in travel destinations and souvenirs,” says a gallery statement.
In works like “Catch of the Day,” Matzeg evokes the timeless experience of a pint of brew and a gingham-lined basket of freshly battered fish. “Lighthouse Route” captures a scenic byway sign, and in “The Afterglow,” a grocery store sign advertises summer vacation staples like ice cream cones and pizza by the slice.
Pieces in The Scenic Route hint at simple joys, brief pauses, and the fading light of day, evoking “in-between” experiences that may seem ordinary enough at the moment but linger in the memory long after summer ends.
Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Catch of the Day”
Detail of “Lick-A-Treat”
“Open”
Detail of “The Afterglow”
“Lighthouse Route”
“At the Lookoff”
Detail of “At the Lookoff”
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Join Us for a Colossal x Joy Machine Workshop with Peter Frederiksen
by Aurelia Butler 11 February 2025, 13:33
“Not Taking Any Chances” (2022), freehand machine embroidery on linen, 8 x 6 inches
Join Us for a Colossal x Joy Machine Workshop with Peter Frederiksen
February 11, 2025
ArtColossalWorkshops
Grace Ebert
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We’re excited to share that we’re hosting an embroidery workshop next month with Chicago-based artist Peter Frederiksen. Join us at Joy Machine on March 2 for Frederiksen’s signature Stitch Circle.
The three-hour workshop will unpack his unique approach to image-making and teach the basics of embroidery. All skill levels are welcome.
This workshop coincides with Joy Machine’s inaugural exhibition, Light Preserver, which features Frederiksen’s embroideries alongside works by eight artists who cultivate and ritualize joy.
There are only a handful of tickets left, so get yours before they sell out. And if you’re a Colossal Member, don’t forget to use the discount code in your account for $5 off.
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Announcing Joy Machine, a New Art Gallery in Chicago
by Aurelia Butler 10 February 2025, 10:00
Abi Castillo, “Blooming” and “Blue Caterpillar” (2025), ceramic
Announcing Joy Machine, a New Art Gallery in Chicago
February 10, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert and Christopher Jobson
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As Colossal prepares to turn 15 this year, we’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be part of a creative community. During the last decade and a half, we’ve spoken with thousands of artists, designers, and makers and cultivated a vast network of friends and colleagues around the globe. Publishing has been one of the greatest joys of our lives and demonstrated again and again how art can connect us all.
We’re incredibly excited to share that we’re expanding our footprint right here in our home of Chicago. Our new art gallery, Joy Machine, opens on February 21.
Michael McGrath, “Night Ride, Spring Gods” (2025), colored pencil on wood panel, 10 x 8 inches
A year in the making, Joy Machine is built around the belief that amid deep uncertainty and upheaval, joy becomes an indispensable gateway to hope. As we navigate this incredibly difficult time, we’re interested in coming together to expand our power to feel and process experiences good and bad.
Our first exhibition, Light Preserver, features nine artists who cultivate and ritualize joy through humor, nostalgia, vibrancy, and excitement for new possibilities. Whether reflecting on childhood fun or invoking art’s ability to rescue us from depression, each artist taps into our shared humanity—not to evade difficult realities but to find meaning and purpose amid chaos. In this way, joy becomes an essential antidote to despair and a fundamental lifeline to keep us all afloat.
Light Preserver features work by many artists you’re probably familiar with, including Moises Salazar Tlatenchi, David Heo, Liz Flores, Peter Frederiksen, Danym Kwon, Lisa Congdon, Michael McGrath, Jeff Rubio, and Abi Castillo.
Colossal will continue publishing independently as it always has, and when Joy Machine’s projects fit Colossal’s mission, we’ll be sure to share them with you all here.
If you’re in Chicago, please join us to celebrate Joy Machine’s opening on February 21. You can follow the gallery on Instagram, and sign up for the newsletter on the website.
Danym Kwon, “When Small Happiness Found Us” (2025), acrylic and acrylic gouache on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
David Heo, “Mamihlapinatapai” (2024), mixed media on paper mounted on panel, 11 x 28 inches
“Red Boots” (2025), acrylic on wood, framed in hemlock, 18 x 24 inches
Peter Frederiksen, “Sharing Secrets” (2022), freehand machine embroidery on linen, 6 x 8 inches
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Order and Chaos Entwine in Abstract Embroideries by Kristine Stattin
by Aurelia Butler 5 February 2025, 19:49
All images courtesy of Kristine Stattin, shared with permission
Order and Chaos Entwine in Abstract Embroideries by Kristine Stattin
February 5, 2025
ArtCraft
Grace Ebert
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Where someone might see opposition, Kristine Stattin finds fitting companions. Working in her studio in the Occitanie region of southern France, the artist alternates between hand and machine embroidery as she layers long, sweeping lines and tiny, tufted French knots. The contrasts create tension and intrigue and ensure that Stattin doesn’t get too comfortable with any one mode.
“My work is all about the process, being in and surrendering to the moment, embracing the unknown, not being attached to outcomes and expectations, and bringing the threads to life,” she says.
Bursting with color and texture, Stattin’s abstract embroideries evoke movement and energy through several layers of thin, sewing thread stitched atop one another. There’s tension between orderly rows and chaotic smatterings. “Each new piece is an internal journey, a sort of enigma that asks to be solved, and I use the needle and threads to capture a feeling, movement, and life itself,” she shares.
Occasionally, appliqué, screen-printing, and acrylic-painted details appear in her pieces, and decisions to incorporate new materials are part of an instinctive process guided by the work itself. Color is similar, with combinations of pastel hues and bold, saturated palettes derived from nature, the artist’s surroundings, or even the way sewing thread falls on her table.
“I am interested in an intuitive, yet mindful process, to see where the threads will take me, to see and respond to what happens, and to work with eventual mistakes,” she says. “I embrace those mistakes as they often lead to new ideas that I bring into future work.”
Follow Stattin on Instagram for updates and glimpses into her process.
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embroidery

Latest story

Sculptural Embroideries on Wood by Nosheen Iqbal Translate Architectural Motifs into Thread

More stories

Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives

With 60 Artists, ‘The Golden Thread’ Weaves Together a Survey of Contemporary Fiber Art

Delight in Heather Rios’s Delectable Cakes Made from Polymer Clay and Embroidery

Melissa Calderón Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured Thread

Adrienna Matzeg’s Punch Needle Embroideries Conjure Nostalgic Summer Road Trips

Join Us for a Colossal x Joy Machine Workshop with Peter Frederiksen

Announcing Joy Machine, a New Art Gallery in Chicago

Order and Chaos Entwine in Abstract Embroideries by Kristine Stattin

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