subtleties Photograph

My name is Harriet Maxwell, I am a 23 year-old textiles graduate from Goldsmiths University, London.
I am interested in portraiture and the figure. I use oil paint and embroidery to capture subtle, intimate details found on the surface of the skin. My work has recently become more focussed on stitch. Rather than simply focussing on the surface of the skin, I feel that stitch allows me to construct the flesh, building up thread to reference layers of skin, mapping out patterns and contours with the direction of the stitch. Embroidery enables me to create a dense, indulgent and tactile cloth that I believe not only refers to surface, but to the composition of the surface. The direction and density of the stitch contribute to a rippling effect, which produces a high relief surface, hinting at the rising and falling of breath, of subtle movement. Depending on the light, this can create an ever-changing portrait, light and shade emphasizing and diminishing details, creating alternative portrayals, just as in life.