Cayce Zavaglia is an artist who blurs the line between painting and embroidery. Her photorealistic portraits are hand-stitched with crewel embroidery wool on linen, creating a mesmerizing illusion of depth, volume, and form. Zavaglia’s technique involves sewing threads in precise directions, mimicking the layering lines of a drawing to achieve her ‘mixing’ of colors.
Originally trained as a painter, Zavaglia’s transition to embroidery over 14 years ago has led to a series of intricate, textural images that capture the natural beauty and complexity of human identity.
My work focuses exclusively on the portraits of friends, family, and fellow artists. (…) Over the years, I have developed a sewing technique that allows me to blend colors and establish tonalities that resemble the techniques used in classical oil painting. The direction in which the threads are sewn mimic the way brush marks are layered within a painting which, in turn, allows for the allusion of depth, volume, and form.
Cayce Zavaglia
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