Closer view

After spending twenty years as a free-lance hand embroiderer in the fashion industry I am now focussing on my own creative work. Still employing intensive hand stitching I can now question the placing of each thread mark, giving each stitch its own relevance.

To ensure creative exchange and dialogue I deliver workshops exploring emotions and challenging the students’ attitudes to thread and needle, emphasising the importance of a serious approach and also celebrating the sensuous and sensual qualities of stitch.

Horizon
Monoprint, 2008
Closer view

Where
Dyed silk, embroidery, 2008
Closer view

The horizon represents the non existent yet visible possibilities of unrealised experience; they are goals and directions we can choose to pursue or to ignore. My work explores my attraction to this nebulous concept and the emotional intensity I experience when I consider the limitless space contained within the horizon.

Canvases have become larger and sparser, drawn lines and marks are now leading the viewer into imaginary landscapes, with fewer patterns and less riotous colour to seduce the eye. The colours of the natural world around me in the North West of England and Scotland are taking precedence, still on natural fabrics and still with flashes of intensity. The male figure is repositioning itself, no longer as a desirable decoration, more as an integral mark of sexuality and presence.

James Hunting