Rosie sykes
BA(hons) Hand Embroidery
Royal School of Needlework
Graduates: 2024
Specialisms: Embroidery / Textiles - Mixed Media / Costume Design - Stage Screen Dance
My location: Manchester, United Kingdom
Rosie sykes
First Name: Rosie
Last Name: sykes
University / College: Royal School of Needlework
Course / Program: BA(hons) Hand Embroidery
Graduates: 2024
Specialisms: Embroidery / Textiles - Mixed Media / Costume Design - Stage Screen Dance
My Location: Manchester, United Kingdom
About
Drawing with thread is at the heart of Rosie Sykes’ hand embroidery practice. She is compelled by narrative, creating a web that ties together all aspects of her current process, devising a story and character for each project. This is reflected in her interest in costume, and she often uses vintage items and materials to develop a story further, adding personal touches to push boundaries. Rosie’s process always begins with illustration. Using lines to capture the details of a subject, often exploring structure, then allowing these to translate into embroidery through repeating similar methods on fabric. This fluid method of creation is further enhanced through experimental Goldwork, as Rosie experiments with the limits of her craft, forming three dimensional embroideries to create work that can be viewed from many angles.Technique is at the forefront of her practice, working with a mixture of Tambour, Canvas work, Raised work and Goldwork.
camera Obscura
Immortality, Memory, and Obsession. ‘Camera Obscura’ depicts the extended life of a woman, whose growing obsession is depicted through hand embroidered imagery of vintage cameras. Captivated by narrative, Rosie depicts this story using vintage garments and artefacts. Experimental embroidery truly shows her mind reaching a point of no return, where she can no longer process the world around her, through the use of three dimensional Goldwork details. Born in the late 1600s this character, an unnamed women, is forced to watch the world change around her, family and friends dying as everything she understands slips away as her life continues, longer than it should. After centuries her brain can no longer remember efficiently, causing her to forget everything dear to her. She forms an obsession with cameras, as they remain the only way of remembering the world around her. This project is formed through several costume designs inspired by historical dress to present her slow decent as time passes around her. These designs range across decades including the 1800s, the Suffragette movement, the 1920s, and concluding in the 1990s. The camera motifs increase as her memory disintegrates and obsession grows. Rosie originally explored cameras through illustrative methods. Breaking down their structure and capturing extensive detail. Then translating these marks into her embroidery, through a tambour method, stitching as if she was drawing with a pen. Enhancing this illustrative feel through embroidery techniques such as Goldwork, Blackwork, Canvaswork and Raised work to create detail and texture. Through her embroidered narrative Rosie wants to draw the viewer in and whisk them into a new world, intriguing them with a 1940s inspired costume.
Competitions
