From Spikeworld. | Spikeworld - Spike Dennis | Artist, Maker, Curator and Colloaborator
Facial Recognition by Colleen Toutant Merrill
I’ve come across quite a bit of work over recent months that makes use of the process of embroidering onto photographs. The majority of embroidered photographs don’t seem to delve much deeper than an aesthetic level and simply serve to prettify the photographs with colourful threads – often in trendy geometric patterns.
Facial Recognition by Colleen Toutant Merrill is by far one of the most interesting series of such works that I’ve come across. Colleen is an American textile artist primarily working with quilt making methods.
Facial Recognition is comprised of a series of photographs sourced through social networking sites that have been stitched and quilted over in order to obscure the subjects faces. This creates “unsettling images that question the impact of social media on the formation of our personal and collective identities” (C. Martin, Director Institute 193).
The quilting methods in these works relate to the social media networks from which the images were sourced. Prior to the mechanically reproduced the designs that we are much more accustomed to today quilts were often the produce of collaborative work from members of a given community – a hyper-local social network of sorts.
You can view more of Colleens work on her website: www.colleenmerrill.com
The post Facial Recognition by Colleen Toutant Merrill appeared first on Spikeworld.