Embroidery Art Straddles the Line Between Realism and Abstraction

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Anna Hultin, aka Olan­der­co Embroi­dery, con­veys a sense of both real­ism and abstrac­tion in her hoop art. She does this by stitch­ing some parts of her com­po­si­tion to look like fields of flow­ers or that cows are graz­ing in a pas­ture. But that’s only part of it. In paint­ing, there are drips of the can­vas. It’s hard­er to cre­ate the “drip” effect in thread-paint­ing embroi­dery so it often results in floss, or oth­er mate­ri­als, trail­ing off the edge of a hoop. This is what Anna does, and from this real­is­ti­cal­ly stitched patch comes lines and shapes that take on a life of their own as an abstrac­tion. The push and pull of these two forces are what makes her work a plea­sure to view.

Fol­low Anna on Insta­gram to see what she’s work­ing on next. To pur­chase her work—as orig­i­nals, kits, or embroi­dery pat­terns—vis­it her Etsy shop.