Motif: after Leonid Afremov
Type: Embroidered painting
Technique: Mixed embroidery
Year: 2020
Edition: Limited (20)
Size: Medium
Dimension: 80 x 120 cm | 31.4 x 47.2 in
Number of stitches: over 980,000
Thread length: over 60 km | over 19 mi
Thread colours: 43
What if we could paint emotions as colours? The result would certainly be similar to this masterpiece of the Saxophonist, painted by imaginative Leonid Afremov. Here, as if emotions that the musician is sourcing to create wonderful music are exploding out of his instrument, like a beautiful burst of colours, bringing warmth and love to the world. The contrast between cool night air behind the saxophonist and rich, warm colour palette emanating from his saxophone makes us almost hear the music as if we were sitting in a nightclub.
With his unique painting technique of applying thick paint in short wide strokes, Afremov creates a vision of reality unlike any other artist, but makes us feel that this is how reality SHOULD look like – after seeing this image, the real world feels dull and unimaginative in comparison.
Our embroidered art techniques have captured the brush strokes and the vivid colour palette with fantastic effect, adding to the motif a new layer of life with light-reflecting threads that follow Afremov’s strokes perfectly. It is an amazing tribute to the power of embroidery and possibilities of creating any motif within the textile medium, using nothing but colourful threads.