Maria E. Piñeres

She credits her mother and grandmother for teaching her to sew, knit, and crochet, but she taught herself needlepoint after discovering a book by Mary Martin, an actress and avid needlepointer.[2] The artist's work often consists of homo-erotic imagery taken from vintage pin-up magazines combined with vivid, sometimes complex, textile pattern backgrounds.[3] She first became widely known through her series of needlepoint celebrity mug shots which was first exhibited in 2005.[4] This series included portraits of celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr., Paris Hilton, and Michael Jackson, as well as a portrait of Jack White which was later shown in V magazine. The artist’s interest in the subject came from a desire to show the celebrity in a most vulnerable moment, without the protection of stylists and agents. These haunting images end up revealing a naked humanity in these often idealized subjects.[5][6]

She uses several different techniques including gathering imagery from vintage magazines, digital collages with images collected from the internet, and her own photographs. After some manipulation, the images are embroidered by fusing traditional needlework techniques ranging from a simple Continental stitch to more complex Bargello and Florentine traditions, which lend rich texture with a modern painterly focus on light and color.