Endless hours invested in a piece. Cross-stitch embroidery as an extravagant (and absurd) way of reproducing images.

The process is complex, multi-layered and extremely time-consuming—but that’s the point. It’s about time, and it’s also about taking a step back from the photos. It’s also about playing with perception. I experiment with the level of detail and the accuracy of the colors, until someone who knows the original photo can immediately recognize the embroidered version, whereas for others, it remains vague.

I transform selected old family photos into simplified pixel designs, reduce the number of colors from millions to a random number (like 27 or 56 or 84), match these to the embroidery floss colors, and work systematically with very complex patterns. All of which contrasts sharply with the content of the images, which always only depict a single moment – a split second.

For me, the embroidered images are more like objects. That’s why I plan to show them together with the working drawings, color charts, etc., as well as with other objects together in an installation (working title: I’ll Fly Away).