Last week, I wrote about the importance of art during times of oppression, focusing on how art has the power to expose society’s flaws and portray a better world. However, art is also a source of pleasure-laden escape. I recently discovered a French textile artist, Sandrine Torredemer, whose work provides a delightful getaway from the topsy-turvey chaos of today’s news cycle.
At left, Sandrine Torredemer’s textile reproduction of the photo at right.
Born to Stitch
Torredemer grew up in Céret, France—at the foot of the Pyrenees, not far from the Mediterranean coast. A former urban planner, Torredemer hails from a long line of women who worked with textiles. Her mother was a seamstress, her paternal grandmother an embroiderer, and her great-grandmother made corsets. Vacations were often spent at her grandparents’ home, where her Catholic grandfather ensured she attended Sunday mass, and her atheist communist grandmother taught her to embroider. She fell in love with the latter activity.
« J’aimais tellement broder avec elle. Ma mère était couturière mais détestait la broderie. Elle ne comprenait pas que je passe tant de temps sur des canevas, à suivre des modèles avec des fleurs, des oiseaux, des papillons… »
“I so loved embroidering with [my grandmother]. My mother was a seamstress but hated to embroider. She didn’t understand why I spent so much time on needlepoint, finishing off patterns with flowers, birds, butterflies…”
Becoming a Textile Wizard
Over the years, Torredemer’s choice of subject matter has expanded far beyond flowers and butterflies. Using a variety of fabrics and filaments, she now recreates scenes of daily life, personal portraits, rural landscapes, urban architectures, and vacationers enjoying an afternoon at the seaside.
« Ma démarche artistique s’est progressivement libérée de toute les contraintes techniques de la broderie, pour devenir moins académique, moins parfaite, plus personnelle et sans doute plus sensible. »
“My artistic process has gradually freed itself from all of the technical constraints of embroidery, becoming less academic, less perfect, more personal and undoubtedly more sensitive.”
A Surprising Palette
Many of Torredemer’s pieces are surprisingly similar to the original scenes she seeks to reproduce. For years, she’s been collecting secondhand clothing, salvaging their desirable piece parts, and filing the remnants away on shelves in her studio. Fabric is sorted according to color, material, or design. She also keeps jars stuffed with fibers, yarn, and string of varying qualities as well as stacks upon stacks of spooled thread.
« Je brode depuis l’âge de 5 ans, mais tout a changé le jour où ma meilleure amie m’a glissé, à propos de mes abécédaires : “C’est beau ce que tu fais, mais qu’est-ce que c’est chiant !” »
“I’ve embroidered since age 5, but everything changed the day when my best friend whispered, referring to my alphabet sampler, “What you do is beautiful, but man is it boring!”
Giving New Life to the Tossed Off
Torredemer says that while her works usually imitate a modern-day setting, the materials that she employs automatically inject a rupture from the original. Embroidery is typically associated with images that are somewhat outdated. While the scenes Torredemer depicts are contemporary, the materials she patches together are old, faded, stained, wrinkled, and torn. She pulls the piece parts from her stockpiles and gives them a new life.
« J’ai un panier “rochers”, un autre “eaux “, avec pas mal de voilages moches, car les belles matières ne donnent pas forcément le meilleur effet. J’ai conservé des vêtements d’hôpitaux qui proviennent de la longue hospitalisation de mon fils. Les blouses me servent pour le ciel et les déchirures de charlotte font l’écume de la mer. J’utilise de la ouate pour les nuages. Très important aussi, ce sac à fromage en étamine avec lequel je reproduis le sable. »
“I keep a basket of “rocks”, another of “water”, with a quantity of ugly sheers, because beautiful materials don’t necessarily yield the best effect. I saved the hospital gowns that came from my son’s long hospitalization. The smocks work for the sky and torn portions of scrub hat make foam on the sea. I use wadding for clouds. Also of great importance, this cheesecloth that I use to reproduce sand.”
The Practice of Renewal
As an urban planner, Torredemer once worked on renewal projects in cities across France—Strasbourg, Paris, Marseille, Béziers, and Perpignan, not far from where she grew up. She says she didn’t realize it at first, but there is a clear connection between her art and her former line of work.
« Je puise l’essentiel de mon matériel puisque je brode le plus souvent sur de vieux draps usés, rapiécés, déchirés, en les sortant du fond des armoires. Ces ouvrages assemblés avec des « bouts de rien » sont pour moi des témoignages de nos vies fragiles, d’une reconstruction possible, à rebours de la consommation effrénée. »
“I get the most out of my materials since I usually embroider on old, worn-out sheets that are patched and torn, pulling them out of the backs of my cupboards. These pieces assembled from “bits of nothing” are, for me, a testament to our fragile lives, to the possibility of reconstruction, to the reversal of our unchecked consumption.”
Now Showing
If you happen to be in Paris between March 27 and May 28, 2025, you can see some of Torredemer’s work at La Galerie des Ateliers, which is running a multi-artist exhibit titled Fils et filiations. According to Le Monde, galleries in Perpignan, Lille, Arles, and Paris regularly expose her work. Short of crossing the Atlantic, you’ll find a treasure trove of Torredemer creations on her Instagram account.
Happy scrolling!
vraiment impressionnant ! Je ne la connaissais pas, merci
Je t’en prie Emma.
Seeing the Biarritz beachfront makes me eager to get back there!
Me too! Same with Nice.
Oh Carol! What a treasure! Merci mille fois for sharing her work with us, your ever grateful readers.
You’re very welcome Denise. Bisous.
You so often find “out-of-the-way” stuff, subjects. Tous mes compliments, chère amie…
Et bon week-end.
Extraordinary! Thank you.
Amazing art! It’s hard to believe these pictures are made of material, yard and embroidery floss. Many images are extremely realistic.
I agree. When you zoom in, you may not find the details you expect but Torredemer’s gift is creating something that is close enough to reality, that our imaginations fill in the rest. Pure magic!