Canadian based artist - Amanda McCavour creates beautiful, dreamlike, large-scale embroideries. Her basis in drawing led her to experiment with various mediums to create line and she was intrigued to incorporate embroidery in her drawing. Shading and colour are worked into her embroideries as one would do with a paint brush or pencil. Drawing and line remain fundamental to her work 'I would describe my work as being drawings that are made out of thread. I am interested in thread as both drawn and sculptural line.'
Amanda uses a sewing machine to create her pieces and embroiders free-hand onto water soluble fabric. Once the fabric is dissolved in water only the thread is left and these thread lines form the structure of the installations. Amanda 'is interested in thread’s assumed vulnerability, its ability to unravel, and its strength when it is sewn together.' The embroideries appear delicate however the countless, layered stitches create a new fibre and the pieces hold strong without a base cloth.
Amanda's knowledge and experience of printmaking is also apparent in her work. One particular installation is influenced by doodling. Amanda explains 'I made more than 400 neon orange thread "scribbles" and hung each from the ceiling with a pin and a piece of thread. I was hoping that this repetitive imagery and action would create a mass of thread, a giant scribble. It was all of these similar repeating parts that created a larger whole. Some of the repetition in my work relates back to these ideas which are present in printmaking.'
Amanda talks about the impact of fibre in contemporary art. 'It seems to be that the possibilities for fibre in contemporary art are endless and that the role it might play is one of expanding and broadening the boundaries between art, craft and design.'
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