Zoe Boswell is a Leeds based artist working with contemporary embroidery as a fine art form. Her work aims to transform the mundane into works of art, employing vintage photographs, postcards, and everyday items. Zoe’s work directly disrupts the reality her alternative canvases present and creates a new image, not through the use of a pen or paintbrush, but by piercing through the material with needle and thread.

With the vintage photographs and postcards, this repurposes the memories already created to produce something new; or in the case of everyday items such as receipts, it transforms ordinary commonplace items into a work of art. By altering the materiality of the items, this creates interesting challenges and a unique experience, both for the artist and for the viewer.

The works utilise the traditional practice of hand embroidery, whilst subverting the archaic stereotypes this brings through using untraditional methodology. By altering the materiality of the items, this creates interesting challenges and a unique experience, both for the artist and for the viewer.