IMOGEN MORRIS

Imogen is a Birmingham based artist who creates portraits using nail and thread.

She is influenced by the traditional craft of hand-embroidery, but her style of work puts a contemporary spin on thread work.

Historically thread hasn't been given a space within fine art, deemed 'amateur' or something restricted to the domestic. Imogen uses thread in a way that subverts traditional connotations of embroidery being craft, and elevates the material as a medium that sits comfortably within a fine art sphere.

Imogen utilises thread as a material that is both delicate but also incredibly strong. While the triangular forms in the subject’s face are stark and harsh, they contrast with the delicacy in the materiality of the thread itself.

More recently, she has started working with paint as a background that the threadwork sits against. She applies this in broad, chaotic brushstrokes, to contrast well with the detailed and precise threadwork.

Her method of making consists of wrapping thread around nails which pinpoint the contours of the face to build up a mesh-like form made up of triangles. Imogen builds up layers of these triangles to detail the subjects' features and create depth to the image.