Did you just say digital embroidery?! Vaka Valo returns with some astonishing new work

Date
30 October 2012

We love it when artists make a total u-turn and create a fairly huge project that is entirely different to the style for which we know and love them. Vaka Valo, whose fantastic air-safety manual-esque illustration work we posted about in April is back on the radar with this new collection of expressionist-inspired digital embroideries. “My projects begin with curiosity,” Vaka tells us “then a series of ongoing intensive experiments follow. If I like the results, a system is introduced and a project organically arises from that. I just stay very curious. Ideas are too limiting.”

Tricky on the eye unless viewed from a distance, these surreal images seem to be heavily manipulated photographs. “The raw material comes from images I captured from the television in China while living there. Following a long series of experiments, I digitally processed the images using a method analogous to subtractive synthesis in sound, manipulating/distorting the visual wave forms already present. Then, I have created a template for the digital embroidery onto canvas. It is an ongoing process, but I am happy with the results.”

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

Above

Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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Vaka Valo: Esbat Stitches

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About the Author

Liv Siddall

Liv joined It’s Nice That as an intern in 2011 and worked across online, print and events, and was latterly Features Editor before leaving in May 2015.

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