Permanent Dangers by Anna Torma

I have been wanting to post images of Anna Torma's exquisite two sided embroidery that was part of the first Canadian Craft Biennial at the Burlington Art Gallery, Ontario since mid-October.  The co-founders of the Biennial, Emma Quin (director of the Textile Museum of Canada) and Denis Longchamps (director and chief curator of the Art Gallery of Burlington) indicate that the second Craft Biennial will happen in the spring of 2020.  Good news for all of us who love art that is materially based.

This piece by Anna Torma uses her now familiar language of child-like drawings of monsters, here in combination with human figures.  A very prolific artist who works completley in hand stitch, Anna's creates bodies of work for exhibition, such as Superlayers    Blood ties  (and also here) is a recent exhibit she held with her grown son.   I have written about her work before (here) but if you are interested in seeing her newest work, she is active on facebook.

Look at the amount of stitching!  These stitches are like drawn marks with coloured pencil.

The variety of scales and subjects in the imagery over whelms our senses.
It's different than  anything I would do myself.
It throbs.
It excites the viewer.

The two sides of this piece are each beautiful
Black cloth backing, white cloth front.
The thread drawings join these two opposites.
Then the artist stitched through all images and backgrounds - everything -
with thick white thread so that the back looks as if caught in a snow storm, and the front is quieter.
Not erased, but muted.

and the edges.
Don't you want to touch?