Stitched portraits inspired by Annegret Soltau

Annegret Soltau is a German artist known for her radical, body-centred work, particularly her stitched photographic portraits. Her signature technique emerged in the 1980s, when she began cutting up photographs of her face and body and sewing them back together with black thread. Pieces of the photograph are rearranged, layered with other images or pulled apart, so that faces appear fractured, bound or reconstructed.

In this project, we are taking inspiration from her work and creating our own stitched collage self-portraits.

MATERIALS:

• A4 printed photographs of your face from different angles and scales
• A magazine to cut pictures from
• Sewing needle
• Sewing or embroidery thread
• White card
• Glue stick
• A cork board (or something else you can poke a needle into)

HOW TO:

To create our Soltau inspired portraits we tried 2 different techniques. The first idea was to collage pictures that represented something about our personalities over our faces.

To begin, print out and A4 size self portrait and glue it onto white card. The card needs to be thick enough that it doesn't rip when it is stitched and thin enough that you can't get a needle through. 

Find an image from a magazine that represents something about your personality and cut it out. We chose flowers, Star Wars, writing and ice cream!

Compose your cut out images over the faces and secure in place with a little glue in the middle. It can be tricky to embroider through card as you can't tell where you are poking the holes, so my top tip is to use a needle to poke the holes where you want to sew first. You can use a cork board underneath to make it easier.

Once you have finished making all the holes, secure some thread at the back with tape and begin sewing. We stitched all the way around the edge of the image, leaving parts of the face showing.