The Body Electric 2021 & 2022

Posted on November 16, 2022 by Lia Pas

My work was once again selected to appear in The Body Electric—an annual health and humanities exhibit that is part of the International Conference on Residency Education (ICRE).

Initially launched during the 2014 International Conference, The Body Electric uses art as a way to critically engage with medicine and healthcare. The Body Electric annual digital art exhibit showcases an inspiring selection of visual art, in a range of media, including photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and video.
from The Body Electric website

One of this year’s themes was Art as Coping so I submitted three of my paresthesia symptomatology pieces:

On bone white linen, there is the faint outline of a hand, fingers apart. The hand is filled with thick dark blue lines intertwining and crossing over. There are finer thin lines in bone white beneath the thick blue lines. At the wrist, the thick blue lines end in strands of thick thread, hanging over the edge of the linen. — paresthesia (hand 1) – 2016

On black linen there is the outline of an open mouth with the tongue sticking out. The lips are outlined in a dark pink, the tongue in a paler pink, and the teeth in bone white. There are sections outlined on the tongue in thick blue lines. The tip and sides of the tongue are covered in tiny red, orange and white dots. In the center of the tongue there is an hourglass shape made of tiny pink dots. There are taut lines of thin dark blue thread stretched from the tip of the tongue to the sides, from the sides of the tongue to the lips and palate, and from the palate to the tip of the tongue. — paresthesia (hand 1) – 2016

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Bleeding Vessel

Posted on October 13, 2022 by Lia Pas

At long last I have completed my embroidery piece, Bleeding Vessel. I started the piece 27 July 2020 and finished stitching it 15 June 2022—almost two years.

An embroidery of a uterus stitched in black thread on white linen with texture like a woodcut. The mesometrium spreads like wings, the ovaries are ovals on the mesometrium, and the fimbriae on the ends of the fallopian tubes look like sea anemones. Inside the uterus, the edges of the endometrium are stitched in bright red thread with long and short stitch in a textured leaf pattern. The centre endometrium is filled with the same texture but in burgundy with thinner thread. The edges between the burgundy and the bright red are filled with single strand satin stitch with curlicue edges. There is an apple-sized half circle fibroid on the left upper area of the uterus and a strawberry sized one on the right lower side. Both fibroids are made of red, pink, and cream beads of various sizes. Another strawberry sized section of clear, purple, and red beads is a cyst over the right ovary, and a small section of dark red and purple beads are a polyp inside the endometrium. There are long burgundy strings hanging from the bottom of the endometrium with medium and large red beads on them that extended past the vaginal opening. The initials L. P. are stitched in white on the right side of the image. — Bleeding Vessel (2022). Cotton and nylon thread with glass beads on linen/rayon blend. Stitched area is 42 x 28 centimetres.

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I’m a New S.E.W Member

Posted on March 14, 2019 by Lia Pas

I’m pleased to announce that I’m a new member of S.E.W., The Society for Embroidered Work. S.E.W. is an international society of artists who work in embroidery as their medium. Membership is by application once or twice a year and chosen based on the quality of the artwork. I’m very honoured to be a part of this society, which is helping to bring embroidery into the art world as a serious medium.