Marine Beaufils is a French embroidery artist. She reproduces the world on a different grid than the one that is imposed to us. On embroidery’s matrix, she tries to fit the details of the video games she loves, the vignettes of her favorite movies, the readings that have marked her or the colors of astronomical views that fascinate her. It is necessary to rethink pixels into points, to convert the gradations into single tones, to calculate the dimensions of infinite objects: it is a work of adaptation and precision which cumulates great freedom and a constant discipline. Everything she likes.
Sometimes Marine works with artists whose “cartons” (preparatory drawings) she reproduces.
Price list of artworks available here.
For any questions you can contact me there.
Mastodon account and @moonovermarine elsewhere.
The Sentinel is a series I have been working on since 2021. In the end, it will consist of 13 needlepoint tapestries.
The Sentinel is first and foremost a video game—originally designed by Geoff Crammond for the BBC Micro—which has had many conversions.
I discovered this game in its PC version without ever exhausting its 10 000 levels!
Since then, I have spent many hours wandering through the sometimes wooded, sometimes bare landscapes of the different versions of The Sentinel.
But I always come back to its ZX Spectrum’ version—which was ported by Mike Follin. To explore it, I use the walkthrough of the excellent RZX Archive.
In particular, its color palette hypnotizes me. This color range is apparently very simple because the ZX Spectrum has only 8 colors. But, thanks to ingenious technical tricks, it radiates a subtle beauty.
These colors, game sequences, angles and other hallucinatory scenery are now imprinted in my head and are reflected in this 55x46cm series.
Each needlepoint tapestry is made in a duo of colors proposed by the game.
Fascinated by astronomy, I had the desire to understand how the spectacular views shared by astronomers and telescopes were made. Among other things, I browsed the Hubble telescope image database extensively.
In the end, it was the first telescope images that made the most impression on me and I extended my search to the ESO 3.6 meter telescope and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
For this work, I try to reproduce my selected images pixel by pixel.
Cross-stitch representation of a region of the sky shot on a one-year sky survey and showing tons of photon. Inspired by a Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope simulated map in the 90’s.
Cross-stitch representation of Supernova 1987A, inspired by an Hubble shot
Cross-stitch representation of the star HR 8799, inspired by an Hubble NICMOS shot
Cross-stitch representation of distant galaxies and stars, inspired by an Hubble shot
Needlepoint tapestries inspired by two Hubble shots
Needlepoint tapestry representation of a galaxy located in the Hubble Deep Field
Needlepoint tapestry representation of a galaxy located in the Hubble Deep Field
Cross-stitch representation of the Tarantula Nebula, inspired by several Hubble shots
Cross-stitch representation inspired by the first shot by Hubble
Cross-stitch representation of a distant quasar, inspired by an Hubble shot
Needlepoint tapestry representation of galaxy PKS 0521-36, inspired by an ESO 3.6 m Telescope shot