Taking the plunge into the punch needle-embroidered world of Adrienna Matzeg, you quickly learn she’s not just a textile artist—she’s a textile philosopher. Within her practice, she reimagines everyday objects, retro signage, and Americana roadtrip scenery in a dreamlike stillness through needle and thread. She explores shape, light, and shadow in her image-making while simultaneously dissecting the constructed nature of memory, and what happens in the translation between memories to photographs to embroidery.
Below, Matzeg reflects on her journey, practice, and the bigger ideas she’s examining through each loop of thread.
What’s your creative origin story? How did you first come to the world of textiles and punch needle embroidery?
My relationship with textiles started quite early. I was always drawn to textiles, I think because it was an activity I could bring anywhere with me as a kid, and it gave me a real sense of accomplishment to complete something by hand. I learned to knit and crochet from my Grandma and Oma when I was young. They both were always working on a project and it fascinated me that I could create something useful or beautiful from colorful yarns. I made a lot of scarves, socks, dishcloths, nothing too major. Around the same time, I also had one of those “Klutz” friendship bracelet kits, which was probably my first real introduction to embroidery thread.
There is something inherently theatrical about my compositions, the way I frame a scene, arrange elements, and think about lighting and atmosphere.
Before studying art, I spent eight years training professionally in classical and contemporary ballet at Canada’s National Ballet School. I think that background in theatre and performance continues to influence the way I approach my practice. There is something inherently theatrical about my compositions, the way I frame a scene, arrange elements, and think about lighting and atmosphere.
I eventually went on to study photography at NSCAD University in Halifax Canada, where I became increasingly interested in photography as a way of observing and recording places and objects. I was particularly drawn to artists such as Alec Soth, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, and Gregory Crewdson, whose work showed me how ordinary places and fragments of everyday life could be transformed into something atmospheric, cinematic, or psychologically charged.
Years later after school, I found a new way to think through photography, using thread to reconstruct the places and moments that stayed with me. Textiles gave me a way to take the photographic image and translate it into something tactile. And honestly, at the very beginning, it gave me reprieve and something to focus on during the COVID lockdowns in 2020 and 2021.
How did you develop your distinct point of view and aesthetic as a punch needle embroidery artist?
When I began working with punch needle, I wasn’t interested in simply translating photographs into embroidery. I became more interested in what happens when a photograph is reconstructed slowly by hand. What gets edited out, and how an image can tell a story through tactile materials in a simplified form. My aesthetic comes from that intersection of photography and memory. I’ve also experimented with photography and textiles through other processes, including weaving images and screen printing.
I became more interested in what happens when a photograph is reconstructed slowly by hand. What gets edited out, and how an image can tell a story through tactile materials in a simplified form.
Punch needle has a long history as a rug-making technique, particularly in the Maritimes, where I was first introduced to the tradition of rug hooking and its depictions of everyday life in Atlantic Canada. Traditional punch needle is often quite chunky, using wool and larger tools to create highly textured surfaces. When I first tried the technique, I saw its potential as a technique for storytelling. The simplicity of the process and the freedom to control the density, direction, and surface of the stitching gave me a way to think about the medium as a form of image-making. Early on, I was very consciously interested in elevating the medium beyond its association with craft and towards fine art. I wanted the work to be considered alongside other forms of contemporary image-making.
One of the things that became particularly important to my practice is that punch needle has two distinct surfaces: a smooth side and a looped side. I realized that I could use both to create different qualities of image. The looped side produces a softer, more blurred impression, while the smooth side allows for greater definition and crisp edges. The control and consistency with which I use those two surfaces has become an important part of my visual language and, I think, one of the things that distinguishes my work from other approaches to the medium.
There is also something compelling to me about the contrast between photography and embroidery in terms of time. A photograph captures a moment almost instantaneously, while recreating that same moment through thousands of stitches can take weeks. The image shifts from something fleeting into something slow and tangible. In that sense, the embroidery becomes less about documenting a place and more about the act of remembering it.
Earlier on, I approached my work more like traditional photography. I cropped, contained, and framed the image within rectangles. But realizing that punch needle could take on more organic edges allowed me to move beyond that, depicting objects as if they’re floating rather than fixed within a scene. It gave me a greater sense of freedom to think of the entire canvas as the composition, rather than placing an image within it. I still use the white border as a nod to photographic matting, which feels integral to my visual language, but contrasting that with more open, floating compositions has added depth and range to the work.
What is it about punch needle embroidery art that you enjoy so much as an artist? What does the tactility of fiber arts offer you that other mediums don’t?
What I love about punch needle is that it feels closer to painting or drawing. I wouldn’t say I’m drawn to all fiber arts, in fact, I don’t particularly enjoy sewing or needlepoint. I find those techniques quite strict and rule-bound, whereas punch needle gives me much more freedom. I can work with shape, color, texture, gradients, and gesture in a way that feels much closer to sketching.
I also come from a painting background, but I always found painting too messy for my personality; I prefer a sterile environment. I found that first through photography, enjoying to work in a clean space, and later in embroidery. I work out of my home studio, so textiles lends itself to that environment.
One of my favorite parts is that the process is reversible. If something isn’t working, I can pull the stitches out and remake it. That sounds simple, but it creates a very different relationship with the work. I’m able to experiment without feeling that every decision is permanent.
I usually begin with a very clear digital plan and the photograph in my mind, but there is always some ambiguity about how that image will translate into thread. I love watching it slowly transform in front of me and seeing the unexpected things that happen along the way.
That process has also taught me to let go of expectations. I can struggle with that because I naturally want to control every detail, but punch needle requires a certain amount of trust. I start with a plan, trust my skills, and then trust the process enough to let the work become something slightly different than I imagined.
What are the biggest limitations of punch needle embroidery art? Do you enjoy having to navigate those in your practice?
With my background in design, I actually enjoy having limitations. I think of them almost like a clearly defined creative brief. I naturally like to give myself rules and parameters, and I think working within those constraints has become part of what distinguishes my visual style.
The biggest limitation is probably color. Unlike painting, I can’t mix a color myself so I’m limited to what is available in what I can source. If a particular color is out of stock, I have to pivot and adapt. That was frustrating when I first started, but I’ve learned that it’s simply part of the reality of working with this medium, and sometimes those limitations lead me somewhere more interesting.
The tools and materials are another challenge. Punch needle, and especially the kind of embroidery I do, isn’t particularly common, so there are far fewer professional tools and supplies. I’m fortunate to have an incredible needlepoint shop near me that imports linens from Germany. Everything in textiles is interconnected. The size of the needle needs to correspond to the thickness of the thread, which needs to work with the gauge of the cloth, or the loops simply won’t hold properly. There isn’t a rule book for this, so I had to figure out a lot of it through trial and error. I actually figured this all out during the first COVID lockdown in 2020.
There are also physical limitations. Punch needle is a very repetitive, mechanical process often compared to using a tufting gun, except that it’s done entirely by hand. The repetition can put a lot of strain on my wrist, so I’ve had to develop ways of working that allow me to sustain the practice, including taking breaks, using a wrist brace, doing strengthening exercises, and acupuncture.
Can you shed some light on the subject matter and compositions you are drawn to embroidering? I see throughlines of timelessness, nostalgia, vintage signage, and diner table setting tableaus in your work, among other things. Why are you compelled to recreate these sorts of images?
A lot of the scenes I choose have an innate sense of a simpler time. The scenes are rooted in happy memories. I grew up taking a lot of road trips and camping trips with my family in Canada, and I think those experiences contribute to the way I see and what I’m drawn to photograph.
I rarely depict anything other than summer. There’s something about summer that carries a particularly potent nostalgia for me. Long drives, roadside stops, being outside until late, and the feeling that there was nowhere else you needed to be. These ordinary places and objects have become visual markers for that feeling.
We selectively hold onto certain details, emotions and impressions, and over time those memories become their own version of a place. For example, that feeling of returning somewhere you haven’t been in years and realizing that it’s completely different from how you remember it. Sometimes, actually often, it’s better in your imagination.
That tension between what something actually is and how we remember it is central to my work.
That tension between what something actually is and how we remember it is central to my work. I think of memory as a construct and as something that is constantly being edited and reshaped. The scenes I choose are often happy memories, but they’re also idealized.
That’s also why the textile medium feels so appropriate. Punch needle naturally softens and obscures the image. The surface is tactile, the edges can feel blurred, and the image is never quite as precise as a photograph. It mirrors the way memories exist in our minds: fragmented, softened, selective and removed from reality.
What’s your design process typically like for a particular piece? Do you plot out the composition and colors in some way at first and then embroider from there? I’d love to know more about the specifics!
My process is quite design-driven, which I think comes from my background in product and surface design. That way of working naturally carries into my art practice.
I usually begin with a photograph I’ve taken while travelling. From there, I bring it into Illustrator and start simplifying and reconstructing the image.
Once the digital image feels resolved, I create a stencil and transfer it onto the fabric before beginning the embroidery. The embroidery itself can take 20-35 hours, but the digital planning can take just as long because I’m quite particular about the composition and color relationships in the early sketch.
There’s still an element of discovery once I start stitching. The digital image gives me a very precise roadmap, but translating it into thread changes the image in ways I can’t completely predict. I like that tension between a highly controlled beginning and allowing the material to take over as I work.
I like that tension between a highly controlled beginning and allowing the material to take over as I work.
You just had a show at Art Toronto last month. Can you say more about what works you included in that collection?
I presented work from my After Hours series with Abbozzo Gallery, including four entirely new works created specifically for Art Toronto.
Last summer I had the opportunity to visit Japan and Korea for the first time. We were there during July, the height of summer, so the heat and humidity really dictated our days. Because of this, the work draws from photos taken on late-night walks, when illumination transformed each city. Convenience store runs, snacks from night markets, and brief detours before returning to the hotel were moments of pause within the constant motion and unfamiliarity of being somewhere new. These places and objects became beacons within the dense urban environments and the unrelenting heat. In the work however, the energy of the city falls away. What remains are quiet scenes that left an imprint, tactile snapshots as a record of those summer nights.
The work takes subtle cues from Bunka Shishu, a Japanese punch needle technique often described as painting with thread. It’s historically associated with landscape and still life imagery. I took inspiration from the way light is rendered through blended colours, to celebrate the connection between place and textile.
Light became an important way of thinking about the series. I was interested not only in what was being illuminated, but in the way light isolates fragments of the city and gives ordinary places a particular presence. Once removed from the larger streetscape, these moments become almost like theatrical props sets floating in space.
