Travel is at the heart of embroidery artist Katy Biele. Chilean-born and now Canada-based, she spent four years exploring and living in different countries; south-east Asia is where she fell in love with textiles and began her foray into embroidery. Since that time, she’s created floating gardens and vibrant floral arrangements in the hoop. Her most recent series is a departure from those past subjects and revolve around painted and embroidered portraits of people.
Katy studied the Yaganes, an indigenous people of Chile, as inspiration for her work. In small, four inch-hoops, Katy illustrates the portraits of the last Yaganes ladies. She highlights their painted facial markings with thick thread and uses her signature tactile plants to create texture and suggest an environment.
Katy sells her work on her website. You can also buy some of her work as instant-download embroidery patterns on Etsy.
The Yaganes women aren’t Katy’s only embroidered portraits. She’s released finished a couple of others.