Organic Embroidery: The Art of Clémentine Brandibas, Weaver of Nature

After ENS Cachan, she trained at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Appliqués Duperré in Paris, followed by a specialization in Lunéville crochet at the Ecole de Broderie d'Art Lesage. She exhibits regularly at trade shows and has been invited to the prestigious Homo Faber in Venice, which celebrates luxury craftsmanship in Europe. Her work has been awarded the Prix de Jeune Création des Métiers d'Art and the Prix Régional des Ateliers d'Art de France.

Her work is an invitation to reverie, sewn with the mysteries of creation and a hint of magic. For no one has ever imagined embroidery so sophisticatedly. Inspired by her seamstress grandmother, Clémentine Brandibas doesn't hesitate to resurrect - or even reinvent - forgotten stitches: spider stitch, coral stitch, Boulogne stitch... She embroiders using an ancestral technique, with a drum, by hand or on an embroidery loom.

The artist-broder likes to play with textures and materials, in particular by inlaying sometimes unexpected elements into her paintings: fishing line, mother-of-pearl, aluminum foil, dead leaves, shells, wax, paint, pearls, lace, scales, sheets of rhodoïd (transparent plastic), to create relief effects and other optical illusions. And to take the technical and poetic aspects even further, she uses feather marquetry on silk or paper. “Feather marquetry is an original and delicate technique that I created and developed as a self-taught artist. It involves dyeing, cutting and gluing feathers on different supports, enabling me to create textured surfaces that play a lot with light, and sometimes transparency.”

Her sources of inspiration are astonishing, and give a real connotation of exploration to her research. “I used kingfisher feathers in the past, but as soon as I learned that they were a protected species, I stopped using them in my pieces. Since then, I've tried as much as possible to use feathers from farmed birds: roosters, geese, turkeys, etc. I buy feathers on the Internet. I buy feathers from specialized sites that guarantee their origin and come with veterinary certificates. And then I receive donations, I make finds in the field, in the forest, in the garden or on a trip.”

In her precious collection of natural materials, she can even add dragonfly wings or cat's whiskers to her paintings (please note that no animal is tortured by the artist). “I have two cats who lose their whiskers on a regular basis, and I find them on the floor, on carpets, plaids and so on. I've been talking to people about it, and from time to time they make donations. My harvests, once transformed and sublimated, become a palette of textures that allows me to create a hypnotic, meditative experience.”

Her painting “Constellations” is inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's “Starry Night”, “Revelations” by snow and haikus. Her needlepoint work on dyed silk “Ecumes”, exploring the texture of the ocean, was adapted by wallpaper house Isidore Leroy in 2022. Her work has led her to collaborate with a wide range of artistic professions: with a cabinetmaker and a fashion designer, for whom she embroidered wooden rods on a kimono, with mask designer Muriel Nisse and haute couture designer Yiqing Yin.

Aesthetic, poetic and dreamlike, Clémentine Brandibas' paintings play with the senses. And that's the art of the embroiderer: reinventing, redesigning and staging materials like no other.