Maria E. Piñeres

Maria E. Piñeres is a Colombia-born American artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. She was formerly represented by DCKT Contemporary in New York City and is currently represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles where she had her eighth solo exhibition in April 2015. Her work, mostly embroidery, has been exhibited at the Museum of Art & Design in New York City.^[1] and Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. She studied painting at The Art Students League of New York and graduated from Parsons School of Design with a BFA in illustration.

Embroidery work

The artist's work often consists of homo-erotic imagery taken from vintage pin-up magazines combined with vivid, sometimes complex, textile pattern backgrounds.^[2] She first became widely known through her series of needlepoint celebrity mug shots which was first exhibited in 2005.^[3] This series included portraits of celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr., Paris Hilton, and Michael Jackson, as well as a portrait of Jack White which was later shown in V magazine. The artist’s interest in the subject came from a desire to show the celebrity in a most vulnerable moment, without the protection of stylists and agents. These haunting images end up revealing a naked humanity in these often idealized subjects.^[4][5]

Technique

She uses several different technique including gathering imagery from vintage magazines, digital collages with images collected from the internet and her own photographs. After some manipulation, the images are embroidered by fuseing traditional needlework techniques ranging from a simple continental stitch to more complex Bargello and Florentine traditions, which lend rich texture with a modern painterly focus on light and color.

References