Anna Hutchinson:

As a visual artist, I use freemotion embroidery as both a drawing process and a way of thinking. Its repetitive nature mirrors the way living systems grow, one small part at a time. Built from thousands of individual stitches, each piece grows through the accumulation of deliberate marks, where meaning emerges through time, attention, and repeated acts of making.

I am drawn to the often overlooked relationships that shape the living world. The more closely I look, the more I notice recurring patterns, rhythms, and structures that reveal our place within it. I never stop being fascinated by the way these relationships appear, and through stitch I translate those observations into work that encourages others to look more closely.

In this body of work, that fascination led me to think about care. Influenced by principles of permaculture, I see care not simply as kindness, but as a living network of relationships that makes growth, resilience, and renewal possible. Care is sustained through reciprocity, attention, and time rather than singular acts.

Care is not one big act. It is many small, connected choices over time.

Thread carries histories of making, mending, and repair. Every stitch contributes to the whole, just as every act of care contributes to something larger than itself. These works ask us to look again at the relationships that bind us to one another and to the natural world

artist bio:

Anna Hutchinson is a contemporary visual artist based in Glin, County Limerick, Ireland. Working primarily with freemotion machine embroidery, she creates layered works that sit between drawing, textile, and low-relief sculpture.

Built through layers of thread, her pieces move between abstraction and recognisable natural forms. Lines rise from the surface, recede into shadow, and shift with changing light. These shadows become part of the work itself, creating a secondary drawing that changes throughout the day. This interplay adds depth and movement, giving each piece a presence that shifts with angle and light.

Inspired by landscape, weather, coastal environments, and organic structures, Hutchinson's work responds to what is seen, remembered, and felt rather than directly depicting the natural world. Colour, texture, rhythm, and connection are recurring themes throughout her practice. Some works draw on the expansive qualities of sky and sea, while others explore the intricate patterns and forms found in nature.

Entirely self-taught, Hutchinson has been surrounded by textiles and making throughout her life. She returned to sewing in 2012 and, following a period of significant personal change in 2025, embraced her identity as an artist, a shift that transformed both her confidence and her creative practice. Working intuitively, she follows colour, tension, and form as they emerge, allowing each piece to develop through a process of exploration and discovery.

Using thread as both mark-making tool and material, Hutchinson creates one-of-a-kind works that invite close looking, revealing subtle relationships between surface, light, shadow, and stitch.

Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout Ireland, including Listowel Writers' Week, Art Source, and her debut solo exhibition in West Limerick.