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Abstract watercolours, human hearts or surreal portraits are some of the spectacular embroideries created by Lisa Smirnova ’s magic hand. She’s a Russian designer that once decided to paint her paintings with needle and thread. This idea resulted in a fascinating and innovative technique that amazes everyone due to its artistic beauty and its laborious perfection on her works.

The thread, wool or cotton are the raw materials this Moscow artist uses to create the embroideries with such a lush accuracy and unmistakable style. Horse wants to bring you in touch with her new collection, named “Artist at Home”, and show you some of her most representative creations over the course of her career.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEArtist at Home Collection, Lisa Smirnova

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEArtist at Home, Lisa SmirnovaLISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEArtist at Home Collection, Lisa Smirnova

Her last work, “Artist at Home”, is the outcome of a collaboration with the eco-friendly designer who is responsible of GO, Olga Glagoleva. It’s inspired by “painters’ dirty clothes”, as they confess. Stained trousers, shirts, shoes or scarfs. These clothes narrate the creative process behind each work. “Artist at Home” refers to the symbiosis between the artists’ home-studio and their attire.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEArtist at Home Collection, Lisa Smirnova

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEArtist at Home Collection, Lisa Smirnova

In this occasion, both designers have transformed the canvas into cashmere, cotton and organic-hemp fabrics brought from India. Lisa Smirnova has embodied these materials with the paint, creating majestic embroideries which have 100 hours of work behind their backs, each one of them!

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Studio where the laborious embroideries are made for “Artist at Home”

But if there is one thing that makes the artist so special is her capacity to transfer the observer beyond the scope of reality. Using her skills with the materials as tools of expression, most of her work is inspired by the magic tales that represent childish monsters, as those in her collection “Where the Wild Things Are”, based on a Maurice Sendak’s childish story. Also her rabbit embroideries are a subtle reminder of “Alice in Wonderland”.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEAmazing embroidery of “Where the Wild Things Are” collection, Lisa SmirnovaLISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEEmbroidery from the “White Rabbit” collection, Lisa Smirnova

Another reason that makes her one-of-a-kind is her long list of embroidered portraits, both anonymous people and celebrities, as we could see in her fall/winter 2014 collection, in which the artist uniquely portraits personalities like Frida Kahlo or Charles Bukowsky.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEHer ability to “paint” with the needle the excellent illustrations is amazingLISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOME“The girl in white”, anonymous portrait, Lisa SmirnovaLISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEFrida Kahlo and Charles Bukowsky, fall/winter 2014 collection. Lisa Smirnova

Without a doubt, surrealism is another of her strong points. She’s more than 18k followers in Instagram! Her Capsule Collection, created in collaboration with the designer Nastya Klimova, presents embroidered clothes with anatomical figures, like human hearts or skeletons that recall the Mexican world. It seems clear that Lisa Smirnova feels special attraction to it, maybe because of its bright colours or de surrealism that surrounds it.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMECapsule Collection, Lisa SmirnovaLISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEDetails of the embroideries from the Capsule Collection, Lisa Smirnova

 We cannot finish without showing her wonderful embroideries with flower details – once again including a heart – conceived for a pillow.

LISA SMIRNOVA, magazine horse, fashion, ARTIST AT HOMEPillow with embroidery, Lisa Smirnova

Horse Team is fascinated by the laborious and surprising style of Lisa Smirnova, and thinks that her embroideries reach the edge of the contemporary art. They become remarkable, unique pieces that from an art collector’s point of view are equally desirable to a painting or a sculpture.