Sophia Narrett

Creating colorful narratives about erotic encounters from needle and thread, Sophia Narrett makes fascinating embroidered artworks that are fueled by love and desire. Trained as a painter, the Brooklyn-based artist began working with yarn by chance while constructing a sculpture during her undergrad studies at Brown University. Further experimenting with thread to stitch some drawings, she brilliantly discovered a way to employ embroidery to simulate figurative paintings. By the time she received her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2014, she was imaginatively making meaningful art with her new medium, which quickly caught the attention of critics, curators, and collectors.

Not exactly your grandma’s embroidery, although Narrett’s initial interest in art actually did come from seeing her grandmother’s handmade copies of Marc Chagall’s romantic paintings, the artist fills her works with emotional experiences and wild fantasies. Starting with a preoccupation that she’s personally felt or is pondering, Narrett develops a visual narrative by creating a digital collage with imagery culled from pop culture, movies, television shows, and social media, as well as her own staged photographs. Tapping into our collective consciousness through mass media and the Internet, she sensationally stitches people, props, and scenery together to construct contemporary tales on par with The Garden of Earthly Delights’ celebrated creator, Hieronymus Bosch.