In this video, titled “A New Way to Knit,” artist Petros Vrellis creates amazingly complex portraits on a loom using just one very long piece of black thread. This work, which is part of a group of portraits, is based on the distinctive elongated figures of the painter El Greco.
Before he begins to work with the thread, Vrellis creates an algorithm that inputs a digital photograph and outputs the pattern. Then, Vrellis prepares the portrait, using 1,500 meters of black thread and a circular loom. A computer dictates instructions to him as he criss-crosses the thread, hooking it to different points around the loom. It’s a time-consuming process.
As the video speeds up, you can see a face slowly emerge. The detail is amazing, given the medium. The colors are also precisely chosen. Although the thread is black, Vrellis is able to create a grayscale work. As he explains, “The absence of black thread gives a completely white color tone. The tone darkens as the density and the intersections of the black thread increase. Thus, a full grayscale palette (from black to white) is possible.”
You can buy portraits from the collection on Saatchi Art.
