Clever and talented London-based design studio CUSTHOM recently curated a super beautiful exhibition of tactile posters. A selected group of twelve designers each submitted an artworks which CUSTHOM manipulated through stitch or mechanical drawing, using a ‘hacked’ digital embroidery machine. The result is a perfect marriage between technology and art, and one of the most beautiful and progressive examples of computer-aided works I’ve seen…

01 | Unfinished Portraits by Colin Chillag. 02 | Human Paintings | Alexa Meade & Sheila Vand. 03 | Mark Powell’s Bic Biro Drawings on Vintage Envelopes. 04 | Embroidered X-rays by Matthew Cox. 05 | Digital Art by Andreas Nicolas Fischer. 06 | Neon Art by Daniel A. Bruce. 07 | Mind Bending Installations & Sculptures by Anish Kapoor. 08 | Paper Art by Lisa Rodden. 09 | Tillman Kaiser // The Truth And The Abstract Blues…

Matthew Cox is a Philadelphia based artist who embraces and joins a variety of media in his work. His medical x-ray and embroidery series is just soooo… oh, I don’t know… bizarre, bad-ass and pretty amazing all at once. The contrast of decorative and technical, labour-intensive and instant comes together so beautifully, and I love the way Matthew’s touch makes lifeless x-rays literally come to life…

My love for embroidery is nothing new, but Claire Coles’ extraordinary hand embroidered wallpapers are certainly new to me. Claire graduated from Middlesex University in 2003 with first class honors in Applied Arts. Amongst her first commissions were a wallpaper display for Liberty of London and a book cover design for Penguin Publishing. Oh man, how is that for a career start? Epic!

Claire works from her West London showroom, where she designs and produces bespoke embroidered wallpapers for both private clients and commercial projects…

I have a little confession. There was a time when I considered embroidery to be just too traditional, old and boring (insert rolling eyes, pimply face and mouth wide open while chewing bubble gum). You get the picture, right? I was in my early teens, surrounded with the most magnificent embroidery my mum, grandmother, most of my aunties and lady neighbours used to do back in the “old country”. They would often share their latest pieces over many cups of strong black coffee, frequently oohing and aahing at each others creations, exchanging tips for best quality silk thread, how to achieve that smooth transition resembling watercolour painting… And there I was. Bored out of my brain, thinking the whole thing was such a waste of time. What an idiot…