Artist Reimagines Instant Film as Embroidered Landscape Polaroids

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While there are many innovative cameras these days, there is something to be said for the pleasant, tactile quality of a Polaroid. It has a playful quality that is only enhanced by its small, postcard size. Hong Kong-based artist Artemis imitates this popular form of photography by stitching colorful landscapes onto small, Polaroid-size pieces of paper, capturing environments from her own imagination.

Her journey into embroidery art began four years ago, in 2017. “Living in a hectic city is too much for me,” Artemis tells My Modern Met. “I love nature, mountains, ocean, sunset… It calms me down and deepens the bond between me and the universe. I guess this explains why my work is mostly landscapes. I like experimenting with thread-painting techniques on different types of surfaces, such as fabric, canvas, paper. Recently, I combined crochet technique in my embroidery art too.”

In this way, she deftly renders a variety of bucolic scenes such as woodlands, meadows, and mountainsides. The variety of stitching techniques, knots, and colorful threads enhances the extremely tactile quality of these images, beckoning the viewer to run their hands across the composition and feel the handiwork for themselves. Additionally, by layering her designs with so many hues and detailed knots, she is able to create an image that is as immersive as a small, expressive painting.

You can purchase Artemis' original art via her Etsy shop, and see more embroidery projects by following her on Instagram.