Education 2014 Masters of Fine Arts, Fibers & Material Studies, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA 2007 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Visual Arts, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Grants and Awards 2024 Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects Individuals Grant 2023 David Suzuki Foundation, The Rewilding Arts Prize 2022 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Harbourfront Centre Canada Council for the Arts, Concept to Realization Project Grant Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects Individuals Grant 2021 Canada Council for the Arts, Research and Creation Grant 2020 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Textile Museum of Canada 2019 Ontario Arts Council, Visual Arts Projects Grant Canada Council for the Arts, Arts Across Canada Grant 2nd Place, Young Masters Art Prize, London UK Emerging Woman Artist Award, Young Masters Art Prize, London UK Shanks Memorial Award in Textiles, Craft Ontario 2018 Toronto Arts Council, Artists in the Libraries Grant Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Craft Ontario 2017 Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects Individuals Grant 2016 Toronto Arts Council, Animating Historic Sites Grant, Montgomery’s Inn Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Textile Museum of Canada Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Craft Ontario Mary Robertson Textile Award, Craft Ontario People’s Choice Award, Penn College Gallery, 10th Anniversary Invitational Exhibition 2015 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Textile Museum of Canada Canada Council for the Arts, Fine Craft Grant Ontario Arts Council, Craft Projects Individuals Grant Toronto Arts Council, Level One Visual Arts Grant 2014 Ontario Arts Council, Exhibition Assistance Grant, Harbourfront Centre Teaching Assistantship, Temple University Handweavers & Spinners Guild of America, Convergence Conference Grant Surface Design Association, Outstanding Student...
Window Display: Hermès New York CityAmanda McCavourAugust 7, 2025Latest Updates(0)One Sentence Summary: My embroidered installation at Hermès Madison Avenue features Pegasus in Bloom, where the mythical...Read MoreExhibition: Of Wonders Wild and New at The Burlington Botanical GardensAmanda McCavourJanuary 31, 2025Latest Updates(0)Short Statement: My installation Ode to a Prairie at Royal Botanical Gardens creates an immersive...Read MoreExhibition: Bloom at The Lake of the Woods MuseumAmanda McCavourSeptember 30, 2024Latest Updates(0)One Sentence Summary: My wire installation at Lake of the Woods Museum creates a floating...Read MoreExhibition: The Blue Afar at the Thames Art GalleryAmanda McCavourJanuary 7, 2024Latest Updates(0)Short Summary: My latest exhibition at Thames Art Gallery explores the longing of distance through...Read MoreExhibition: In Her Garden at the Peel Art GalleryAmanda McCavourSeptember 7, 2023Featured(0)One Sentence Summary: My installation Floating Garden is paired with Jannick Deslauriers’ Phasmes to explore...Read MorePublic Art: Floral Canopy at Albee Square NYCAmanda McCavourAugust 31, 2023Featured,Latest Updates(0)Short Summary: My new installation Floral Canopy transforms native New York plants into hundreds of suspended wire...Read MoreOnline Course: Embroidery with a sewing machine with DomestikaAmanda McCavourAugust 7, 2023Latest Updates(0)Short Statement: My new Domestika course is now available online! Date: August 2023 In November...Read MoreStudio: Prairie PlantsAmanda McCavourJanuary 19, 2022Latest Updates(0)A look into my works in progress for an upcoming show at the Chazen Museum...Read MoreStudio: Wire SculpturesAmanda McCavourAugust 9, 2021Latest Updates(0)This summer, I've been working on a new installation using wire to create lines in...Read MoreExhibition: Spirals, Loops and Circles at Harbourfront CentreAmanda McCavourJune 8, 2021Featured,Latest Updates(0)I created a floor mural that will be up for the summer of 2021 in...Read MoreWorkshops 2021Amanda McCavourFebruary 20, 2021Workshops(0) I will be teaching some online workshops about water soluble...
Amanda McCavour is a Toronto-based artist who works with stitch to create large-scale embroidered installations. She is interested in thread’s assumed vulnerability, its ability to unravel, and its strength when it is sewn together. McCavour uses a sewing machine to create thread drawings and installations. By sewing into fabric that dissolves in water, she can build up stitched lines on a temporary surface. The crossing threads create strength so that when the fabric is dissolved, the thread drawing can hold together without a base. With only the thread remaining, these images appear as though they would be easily unraveled and seemingly on the verge of falling apart, despite the works raveled strength. Through an exploration of line and its 2-d and 3-d implications, stitch is used in her artwork to explore various concepts such as connections to home, the fibers of the body and more formal considerations of thread’s accumulative presence. Amanda’s work explores embroidery’s duality- it’s subtle quality versus it’s accumulativepresence and its structural possibilities versus its fragility. Through experimentation and creation within her studio, she continues to investigate line in the context of embroidery, drawing and installation. McCavour holds a BFA from York University where she studied drawing and installation and has recently completed her MFA in Fibers and Material Studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. McCavour shows her work in galleries nationally and internationally with recent solo exhibitions in Gatineau (QB), Williamsport (PA) and Vancouver (BC). She has received grants and awards from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Crafts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, The Handweavers and Spinners Guild of America,...
Amanda McCavour is a Toronto-based artist who works with stitch to create large-scale embroidered installations. She is interested in thread’s assumed vulnerability, its ability to unravel, and its strength when it is sewn together. McCavour uses a sewing machine to create thread drawings and installations. By sewing into fabric that dissolves in water, she can build up stitched lines on a temporary surface. The crossing threads create strength so that when the fabric is dissolved, the thread drawing can hold together without a base. With only the thread remaining, these images appear as though they would be easily unraveled and seemingly on the verge of falling apart, despite the works raveled strength. Through an exploration of line and its 2-d and 3-d implications, stitch is used in her artwork to explore various concepts such as connections to home, the fibers of the body and more formal considerations of thread’s accumulative presence. Amanda’s work explores embroidery’s duality- it’s subtle quality versus it’s accumulativepresence and its structural possibilities versus its fragility. Through experimentation and creation within her studio, she continues to investigate line in the context of embroidery, drawing and installation. McCavour holds a BFA from York University where she studied drawing and installation and has recently completed her MFA in Fibers and Material Studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. McCavour shows her work in galleries nationally and internationally with recent solo exhibitions in Gatineau (QB), Williamsport (PA) and Vancouver (BC). She has received grants and awards from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Ontario Crafts Council, The Toronto Arts Council, The Handweavers and Spinners Guild of America,...
ACCUMULATE LIVING ROOM THE HORIZON, THE OCEAN, THE SKY PINK FIELD, BLUE FOG POPPIES SAMPLE WALL MOVING BOXES NEON HERBARIUM Floating Garden BLOOM CLOUDS OF COLOUR STAND-IN FOR HOME ODE TO A PRAIRIE PRAIRIE PLANT...
Year: 2019-2022 Dimensions: 28’ x 8’ Medium/ Technique: Thread/ Machine Embroidery **Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council “Prairie Plant Studies” originates from pressed flower specimens indigenous to the Wisconsin prairie that I studied at the Wisconsin State Herbarium during a 2019 research visit to the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The work investigates how botanical forms move between scientific documentation and decorative tradition—tracing connections between herbarium specimens, textile patterns, and wallpaper designs. Each embroidered study is created by sewing into water-soluble fabric, building up dense layers of stitched lines and crossing threads. When the fabric dissolves, the thread drawings hold together through their own interlocking structure, suspended without backing. This technique echoes the subject matter itself: just as prairie plant ecologies function as interconnected biological networks where individual species sustain each other through root systems and symbiotic relationships, these thread works depend on accumulated connections to maintain their integrity. The species I reference—goldenrod, milkweed, and other native plants—are markers of memory and place. The recent movement to restore these ecosystems made me think of how these plants represent both loss and the possibility of regeneration. This work has been included in the following exhibitions: Exhibition: Suspended Landscapes at the Chazen Museum of...
Year: 2019-2022 Dimensions: 30’ x 54’ x 30’ Medium/ Technique: Chiffon, Netting, Digital Print **Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council Ode to a Prairie shifts the perspective of a traditional prairie landscape, inviting viewers to walk underneath—rather than through—a floating field of indigenous Wisconsin plants. This large-scale installation for the Chazen Museum of Art’s Paige Court explores plants as markers of memory and place, referencing species including goldenrod and milkweed while engaging with the recent movement to restore Wisconsin’s prairie environment, which was almost completely destroyed by decades of farming. The work transforms the 1,713 square foot central atrium through approximately 50-75 large silk prints measuring 5-10 feet wide by 15-45 feet long. Individual embroideries based on pressed flower specimens from the Wisconsin State Herbarium are sewn at specimen size, scanned at high resolution, and printed on transparent silk or sheer polyester fabric. I then cut and stitch into these prints to add space and air, disrupting the surface and creating organic edges while adding metallics, additional embroidery, and appliquĂ©d chiffon for texture. The installation creates a lace-like environment that contrasts dramatically with the heavy marble brutalist interior, bringing textile forms that burst forth and overtake the ordered architectural space. Source material from the herbarium is altered, cropped, repeated, and mutated to reference repeat patterns found in fabrics, lace, and wallpaper—expanding embroideries from 10-inch units to monumental 10-foot scale to address the site’s grandeur. Each piece hangs from a single point, allowing the work to spin and sway, creating changing compositions as air currents move through the court. These...
Title, Year: Stand In For Home, 2009-2010 Dimensions: 8′ h x 8′ w x 4.5′ d (Dimensions Variable) Medium/ Technique: Thread/ Machine Embroidery * produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council This installation is a thread rendering based on my kitchen table in my previous home. I am interested in the vulnerability of thread in relation to the home, as both things share qualities of fragility. Though susceptible to breaking or unravelling, thread demonstrates remarkable strength when stitched together—a duality that mirrors how domestic spaces can feel both very present and impermanent. Making this piece required me to revisit, remember, and recreate a space that I called home but is no longer mine. The process involved reconstructing specific details from memory and photographs: the contours of the chairs and table, the details of the wallpaper and window. Through accumulated hours of stitching, I rebuilt the space by stitching onto water soluble fabric, translating three-dimensional forms into their flat embroidered equivalents. The embroideries are hung from the ceiling at different depths to create the impression of a space. There is one ideal viewing position where the elements align to form a cohesive scene. Installing the work this way allows the pieces to move and sway with air currents, adding a kinetic quality to the static image of domestic life. The chairs and tables are lifted from the floor to hover, creating a ghost-like presence. Visitors can walk behind the work to view it from the reverse, where the shadows cast on the wall resemble pencil lines, further emphasizing the drawn quality of the...
