Bettina Matzkuhn
Embroiderer
Vancouver, Canada
A discipline of threaded wilderness
- Bettina combines hand embroidery and machine stitching to construct thought-provoking tapestries
- She uses altered functional objects to examine human presence within natural environments
- She develops work through extended observation of specific landscapes across Canada
Bettina Matzkuhn is a Vancouver-based fibre artist and embroiderer with a BFA in visual arts and an MA in liberal studies from Simon Fraser University. She begins every project with a drawing to map out her ideas, later layering hand and machine embroidery with found and synthetic media. Having grown up by the sea, Bettina focuses her work on environmental change, often reworking backpacks or sleeping bags to question the paradox of experiencing wilderness through industrial objects. She documents shifting landscapes, rerouted rivers, drought-affected forests and altered seasonal rhythms. "I use embroidery as a precise, time-intensive medium to describe the living world,” she says. "I hope my embroidered tapestries provoke conversation about nature and the environment."
INTERVIEW
I started embroidery in sixth grade when a teacher introduced me to the chain stitch. Around the same time, I spent long periods sailing with my family, and embroidery became a practical activity during those trips. The combination of these two experiences established both my technique and my focus on landscapes.
I began in fine arts and animation, then worked with the National Film Board using textiles in experimental films. This experience taught me how materials function within a narrative. Later, academic training helped me structure ideas, edit bodies of work and position textiles within contemporary art discourse.
Drawing is essential to my practice. I use sketchbooks and digital tools to test ideas before committing to time-intensive embroidery. I often make experimental samples and incorporate different processes within the same work.
I focus on landscape and environmental change. Residencies in places such as Yukon revealed visible transformations, glacial shifts, drought and altered vegetation cycles. My work tries to convey the feeling of being in a place through the textures and surfaces of the living world.
Bettina Matzkuhn
Embroiderer
Vancouver, Canada
ADDRESS
Address upon request, Vancouver, Canada
AVAILABILITY
By appointment only
LANGUAGES
English, French, German
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