This is a series of embroideries I created based on objects in and around my home. I created each at a 1 to 1 scale. These were the beginnings of some of my pieces based on my home interiors. I created these works by sewing into water soluble fabric and I worked from light colours to darker colours mimicking a cross hatching drawing...
Year: 2016 Dimensions: 35’ x 40’ x 10’ Medium/Technique: Thread, Machine Embroidery Location: Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA Photographer: Jeff Hoffman Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Neon Clouds explores the contrast between thread’s subtle quality and its accumulated presence. This site-specific installation consists of several low-hanging “clouds,” or three-dimensional scribbles, made entirely of thread. Each cloud is built from hundreds of sewn elements, hung from the ceiling with thread. Together, this dense collection of sewn lines acts as a fog or smog in the gallery, referencing pollutants and obscured visibility. Toxic, saturated thread colours (neon green, yellow, orange, pink and blue) fill the space and create a synthetic environment. Neon colours are used to draw attention and highlight things, such as on caution signs, sticky notes and highlighters. A single neon thread is barely visible, but through the build-up of line, the threads create a neon atmosphere. Viewers move around the clouds and navigate the space. The clouds shift slightly with air movement, creating a surreal, artificial cloudscape. By making unnatural clouds of saturated colour, I am loosely referencing environmental issues and...
Year: 2025-2026 Dimensions: 22’ x 36’ (Dimensions Variable) Medium/ Technique: Thread/ Machine Embroidery, Nuno Felting Location: Museum London, London, ON. Double Shadow is an expansive, site-specific textile installation that is mounted to the wall with pins. Drawn from my Black and White Studies series, the work brings together more than 500 stitched elements that transform the Atrium wall into a field of airy, lace-like forms. Each piece hovers just off the wall’s surface, animated by shifting light and shadow. I create many of these works by free motion embroidering, appliquéing and hand stitching onto a special water-soluble fabric. Once the stitching is complete, the support is washed away, leaving behind a self-supporting thread drawing held together through layered and interwoven connections alone. What remains is only thread, fragile in appearance yet surprisingly resilient in form. Throughout the installation, intricate botanical motifs mingle with bold geometric shapes and dazzling patterns, gathering onto textured surfaces. Seen from a distance, the elements form striking graphic compositions; up close, they unfold into dense clusters of fine detail and careful handwork. Double Shadow invites visitors to slow down and look closely, tracing how thread, space and light interact. As individual elements accumulate and connect, the work offers a quiet reflection on material possibility and shared structures, suggesting how forms, like living organisms, find strength together. I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Ontario. This work has been included in the following exhibitions:Exhibition: Double Shadow at Museum...
Year: 2022 Dimensions: 20’ x 20’ x 10’ (Dimensions Variable) Medium/ Technique: Thread, Machine Embroidery In this piece, I am imagining the blue world at the horizon line where the sky touches the earth. It is a journey leading to the distant line of the horizon, a world coloured blue. Through these large-scale installations, I hope to materialize this place that is so close and so far away at the same time. This work has been included in the following exhibitions: Exhibition: The Blue Afar at the Thames Art GalleryExhibition: Bleu Ciel at La Sarre Art...
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, Stipend/Tuition Remission, Temple University Handweavers & Spinners Guild of America, Convergence Conference Grant Surface Design Association,...
Group Exhibition: Held. Together at Nickle GalleriesIn September 2026, I travelled to Calgary, Alberta, to install Ode to a Prairie at...Read MoreExhibition: Double Shadow at Museum LondonDouble Shadow is now on view at Museum London, and this exhibition runs from May...Read MoreStudio VisitThis week, photographer Christine Lim visited my new Toronto studio. She captured a few images...Read MoreWindow Display: Hermès New York CityOne Sentence Summary: My embroidered installation at Hermès Madison Avenue features Pegasus in Bloom, where the mythical...Read MorePublic Art: Ode to a Prairie at The University of Wisconsin MadisonThis summer, I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to install two large-scale works in the new...Read MoreArt Installation: Gladstone House in TorontoIn June 2025, I installed Sunset Canopy, a permanent artwork in the Tower Suite at...Read MoreExhibition: Of Wonders Wild and New at The Burlington Botanical GardensShort Statement: My installation Ode to a Prairie at Royal Botanical Gardens creates an immersive...Read MoreExhibition: Rewilding at The Canadian Museum of NatureI’m honored to share that my work is currently featured in Rewilding – the David...Read MoreExhibition: Bloom at The Lake of the Woods MuseumOne Sentence Summary: My wire installation at Lake of the Woods Museum creates a floating...Read MoreExhibition: AgriCULTURE at the Longmont MuseumIn June 2024, I participated in agriCULTURE: Art Inspired by the Land, an innovative exhibition...Read MoreExhibition: The Blue Afar at the Thames Art GalleryShort Summary: My latest exhibition at Thames Art Gallery explores the longing of distance through...Read MorePublic Art: Garden of Clouds in TaipeiIn 2024, I completed Garden of Clouds, a large-scale embroidered installation for Tok Eats café...Read MoreExhibition: In Her Garden at the Peel Art GalleryOne Sentence Summary: My...
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 STUDIES FAR AWAY BLUE FIELDS DOUBLE SHADOW NEON CLOUDS EMBROIDERED...
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 appliquéd 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...
Year: 2022 Dimensions: 16’ x 16’ x 10’ Medium/ Technique: Powder Coated Hand Bent Wire **Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Clouds of Colour, commissioned for Harbourfront Centre’s main entrance foyer, is conceived as both drawing and sculpture—an installation where hundreds of individually hand-formed wire units hang from single points to create a tactile environment filled with line, colour, and movement. Each sculpture is shaped from black annealed wire using lashing and bending techniques, then powder-coated in vibrant plant-inspired colours: yellows, pinks, purples, reds, and oranges. The accumulation of these units, ranging in size, creates a large expansive canopy that envelops viewers as they pass through this transitional gathering space. Through the repetition of floral imagery and circular motifs, the installation achieves a presence that is both delicate and substantial, activating the passageway with shifting layers of shadow and light. My interest in this work stems from finding connections between scientific research and decorative patterns found in textiles and wallpaper. While much of my practice involves creating lace-like embroidered pieces by sewing into water-soluble stabilizer—building stitched lines on a temporary surface that dissolves to leave only thread—Sunset Canopy translates this approach into wire. Here, colourful wire forms replace thread to create lines that exist in space, shaped on-site during installation to respond to the architecture. The work lives in a place of movement and gathering, inviting people to pause and look up—to encounter a daily moment of wonder as floating forms shift with ambient air currents. I believe strongly in art that welcomes everyone, making space for joy, care, and reflection through the sensory...
Year: 2022 Dimensions: 16’ x 16’ x 10’ Medium/Technique: Powder Coated Hand Bent Wire **Produced with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts Bloom translates the mathematical roulette curves of Spirograph toys into sculptural wire lines that combine the playful gesture of drawing toys with the radial patterns found in textile structures like crochet rings and tatting. I am drawn to wire for its lightness, the shadows it casts, and its capacity to exist as both line and form. This interest in mathematical patterning embedded within textile traditions results in a hanging, mobile work where each circular form is individually shaped and suspended, creating a dense collection of fine lines arranged in the gallery ceiling. The installation presents a floating cloud of colour in bright blues, pinks, and purples—a vivid atmosphere of saturated lines that suggests simultaneously a galaxy, a bouquet of flowers, and a surreal cloudscape. Viewers are invited to move around and beneath the work, experiencing how it shifts subtly with air currents and transforms from different vantage points. This work has been included in the following exhibitions: Exhibition: Bright Little Day Stars at The Columbia Museum of Art Exhibition: Bloom at The Lake of the Woods Museum Exhibition: Wanderings and Traces at Cambridge...
