Create Your First Project
Start adding your projects to your portfolio. Click on "Manage Projects" to get started
Devastated Coral
Project Type
Embroidery
Date
April 2020
First Prize Winner – Bradford Textiles Competition 2019–2020
LAPA Charitable Trust Award – Embroidered Textile Design for Fashion/Accessories or Interior Products
A hauntingly beautiful expression of ecological loss, Devastated Coral portrays the irreversible damage inflicted on coral reefs by rising sea temperatures. Through the language of stitch and texture, this award-winning textile captures the fragile transition from vibrant life to ghostly ruin — from living reef to bleached skeleton, ultimately overcome by invasive algae.
The piece centres on a spiny, skeletal coral form, its structure rendered with a mix of tambour beadwork, intricate goldwork, and rich hand embroidery, combining tradition with contemporary storytelling. The use of turkey rug stitch creates tufts of distressed texture, echoing the decay and erosion that follows coral bleaching.
Embellished with seed beads, pearl purl, and rough purl, each material was deliberately chosen to evoke the contrasting stages of life, death, and colonisation — the shimmer of healthy coral fading into the dull overgrowth of algae. Embroidered on a base of delicate silk organza, the work seems suspended, fragile, and ephemeral — much like the reefs it laments.
Devastated Coral is not only a visual narrative but a tactile protest — a memorial stitched in time, reminding us of the beauty we stand to lose beneath the waves.
