By Karla Cloete
Edited by Imaan Moosa & Humairaa Mayet
This isn’t your grandma’s embroidery. Danielle Clough has been recognised by brands like Gucci, Nike, Kanye West and Drew Barrymore. And for a good reason. Learn more about the fantastic work of this South African embroiderer.
Source: Danielle Clough via Instagram
This is the embroidery of Danielle Clough, a 34-year-old South African artist. But it’s not your grandma’s embroidery. Her work has been noticed by brands like Gucci, Nike, Kanye West and Drew Barrymore. And for a good reason. Her embroidery is colourful, emotive and lively.
Danielle was born and has lived in Cape Town for most of her life.
She didn’t grow up in a creative family nor was she a very artistic child. “If I look back through my old diaries and school projects, I can see there was definitely an extra flair with an overuse of glitter pens and sequins stuck under sellotape.”
Danielle dearly wanted to be a fashion designer, so she went to study at False Bay College for a brief time before she realised it wasn’t for her. She moved on to the Red & Yellow Creative School of Business to study art direction and graphic design because it was the broadest and most practical direction to take.
“I never felt being an ‘artist’ was within my capabilities,” she said.
She’s worked an array of jobs: designer, photographer, art director, stylist and a waitress to support herself, trying to carve out her path. She never thought being a full-time artist was possible. She just wanted to share her passions.
“Sharing my projects and hobbies online has always come very naturally and I would do it as a way to share my interests. It was never a strategy to grow a business or career. Slowly but surely the work I was sharing, the dots I was creating, started to connect.”
In 2016, her embroidery was picked up by Instagram and was featured on a major website. Within a few months, she was able to start doing embroidery full-time.
I create work that I hope brings joy.
She is also passionate about film photography, boxing and bouldering.
I think it’s so important to have a hobby that we don’t try to turn into money, to experience joy and curiosity without adding external voices to it. It’s with the internal dialogues around our passion that we get to really know ourselves.
Her pieces can take anywhere from two days to two months. She specialises in portraits because of the emotional potential of the genre:
“Depicting people and emotion through them is always a good challenge,” she said.
Her creative process varies greatly. She tries to switch up mediums and materials to keep things interesting and challenging. From tennis rackets and embroidery hoops to mixing her work with paint and watercolours, she has expanded the potential of the art form.
If you’d like to see more of her stunning works feel to visit her webpage and find out about her future projects or the classes and workshops she hosts.
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