Elaine Reichek’s Embroidered Greek Mythology at The Whitney Biennial

I got some free wine and the opportunity to see Elaine Reichek’s incredible digital and hand embroidery work last week at the opening of The Whitney Biennial.
Reichek’s contribution to The Whitney Biennial is from a series called “Ariadne’s Thread,” which is based on a Greek myth involving thread and the labyrinth. Some of her work in the exhibition is digitally embroidered and some of it is done by hand. Reichek describes the process of creating her work in an excerpt from The Whitney’s audio guide of the exhibition:

It’s all tremendously organic, the way in which I work between technology, the hand, the eye – those are all included in the general practice.

In the image above from, called “Would You Believe It, Ariadne?” you can see how Reichek converted a digital image into an embroidery pattern and then hand-stitched each pixel onto linen.
Openings are pretty much the worst time to actually look at the work in an exhibition, so I’m planning to go back and check out the rest of the exhibition some other time. The Whitney Biennial will be open through May 27th.
More:

• HOW TO – Embroider a Retro Digital Watch
• How-To: Embroider Digital Images
• Create Your Own Embroidery Pattern from a Photo – CRAFT Video Podcast