Follow the artist turning supermarket staples into embroidered artworks
14 April 2021
Text:
Paula Erizanu
Polish artist @alice.kozlow is creating embroidered sculptures from supermarket packaging — fabricating life-size textile artworks from everything from Haribo gummy bears to cans of Red Bull.
Warsaw-based Alicja Kozłowska learned how to sew, embroider, and crochet using online tutorials and books, while also doing graphics, sculpture, and painting. “I like to think it’s in my blood because both of my great-grandmothers were tailors,” Kozłowska told The Calvert Journal.
Inspired by Andy Warhol and pop art, Kozłowska embroiders consumer packaging in a bid to make us more aware of what we hold in our hands. “I want to help consumers look at everyday objects or goods from a different perspective,” she explains. “In the golden age of Warhol, consumerism in Europe was just gathering momentum. Now we are praying for a weak wind, so we won’t be blown into the abyss. Painting by sewing is, for me, a way to address deeply negative, culturally-constructed indifference.”
It takes Kozłowska one to two weeks to make a Coca-Cola can, and longer for more complex objects. Using traditional and modern embroidery techniques that combine hand and sewing machine work, she thinks of her works as sculptures.
