Cayce zavaglia biography template

I was originally trained as a painter, but switched to embroidery 12 years ago in an attempt to establish a non-toxic studio and create a body of work that referenced an embroidered piece I had made as a child growing up in Australia.

My work focuses exclusively on the portraits of friends, family, and fellow artists. The gaze of the portrait toward the viewer has remained constant over the years and in my work…as has my search for a narrative based on both faces and facture.

The work is all hand sewn using cotton and silk thread or crewel embroidery wool. From a distance they read as hyper-realistic paintings, and only after closer inspection does the work’s true construction reveal itself.

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 layer