Chris Liljenberg Halstrøm is a textile artist who lives and works between Copenhagen and the woods of Småland in Sweden. On close inspection, the surfaces of her delicate hand-embroidered pieces are subtly textured and rhythmic, and are often composed in monochrome or two-tone to draw attention to this quality. “Large monochrome surfaces allow the eye to notice the unevenness of the thread and the weave, creating a flickering effect across each stitch,” says Halstrøm. “Throughout the process of making, I see patterns form, only for them to disappear and be replaced with others as more of the work is completed.”
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Halstrøm opened her highly regarded furniture design studio in Copenhagen in 2007, and in 2019, at the height of her success, decided to focus on her art practice. "While my hands work on embroidery, I have the best conditions for thinking,” she says. "It is a flow state I can get in and out of very quickly. This is the kind of uncompromising way of working I can pursue with my art, which gives me a feeling of relevance and freedom.” Her artwork has been shown at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in LA, and her furniture has been exhibited at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa. Her embroideries tend towards square and rectangular compositions – what she describes as an “anthropocene shape”. “The square is not a shape that occurs in nature; it suggests a human-made space,” she says. “From afar, the embroideries appear as solid shapes – single entities – but when the viewer gets closer, the individual stitches emerge. The technique of embroidery is so often obscured by the pattern it is creating. I am interested in the stitches themselves, examining how in their simplest form, they can reach a completely different level of expression. They are both dissolved and enhanced.”
Words: Ollie Horne
Photo: Toby Mitchell (artwork), Andreas Omvik (portrait)