Motif: by Steve McCurry
Type: Photo embroidery
Technique: Ercigoj stitch
Year: 2014 - ongoing
Edition: Limited (10)

Size: Medium
Dimension: 101 x 67 cm | 39.8 x 26.4 in
Number of stitches: over 1.7 mio
Thread length: over 21 km | over 13 mi
Thread colours: 38
Development: over 500 person hours

Price: on request

Also available in:
  • 80 x 53 cm | 31.5 x 20.1 in, limited edition (10)
  • 150 x 100 cm | 59.1 x 39.4 in, limited edition (5)

About the artwork

Children are playing soccer by derelict ship on the coast of Burma.

With his shrewd journalistic approach to photography, Steve McCurry creates straightforward representational images that illuminate the world and create narratives from honest depictions of people and places.

When reviving this image in a form of embroidery, each element was a specific challenge. However, extraordinary amount of work was done to justly recreate atmospheric mists. This was done by subtle layered stitching.

About the artist

Steve McCurry is one of the greatest icons of modern photography. On a quest for amazing photographs, he travels the world, Asia being his most common destination. » Most of my images are grounded in people. I look for the unguarded moment, the essential soul peeking out, experience etched on a person’s face. I try to convey what it is like to be that person, a person caught in a broader landscape, that you could call the human condition,« he once stated.

Born in 1950 in Philadelphia. A recipient of numerous accolades, including Magazine Photographer of the Year, awarded by the National Press Photographers Association; the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal; two first-places in the World Press Photo contest and Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting. His most recognized portrait, ’Afghan Girl’ was named as “the most recognized photograph” in the history of the National Geographic magazine for which he regularly contributes.

 

Based on an exclusive licence agreement, ten of his exquisite works were monumentalized in Ercigoj stitch technique. Each piece is available in three sizes as a limited edition that comes with a Certificate of authenticity hand signed by Steve McCurry.

Features

Innovation of layering

We layer multiple colours of threads and so create rich embroidery and colour texture that is impossible to create with classic one-layer embroidery technique. By layering, we develop colour transitions and shadowing, by which we create multiple-colour surfaces, similar to pointillism painting.

Smooth transitions and shading

By intertwining threads of endless colours and creating colour transitions, we can shape soft shadows, make one surface transition into another and mix colours into an endless multitude of hues. This way, we can also recreate motives from photographs and sophisticated art paintings which wouldn’t be possible with classic embroidery technique, using vector surfaces.

Sophisticated colour calibration

Usually in embroidery, 10 or 20, maybe 30 colours of threads are used. We use around 1,000 colour hues and if a colour still doesn’t match the desired one, we create it by layering and colour transitions. We have digitally scanned colours of all threads by using a spectrograph, so we can colour match any colour from an original material or from CMYK, RGB or Pantone colour schemes.