Anna Hutchinson
Glin, Limerick
Irish visual artist working with fibre and mixed media. My work is sculptural, tactile: Threadwork like you’ve never seen! https://www.theannahutchinson.com
Messagehttps://www.theannahutchinson.com
Anna Hutchinson is a contemporary visual artist based in Glin, County Limerick, Ireland. Working primarily with free-motion 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.
Statement
I am a contemporary textile and fibre artist working primarily with machine embroidery. My work explores nature, colour, rhythm, and connection through abstract and interpretative forms built in thread.
Rooted in an intuitive, self-taught practice, I returned to sewing in 2012 after many years away. While I have spent over a decade immersed in textiles, it is only in recent years that I have committed fully to embroidery as my primary medium, and to the identity of artist.
I work mainly with water-soluble stabiliser, removing the base to leave behind lace-like stitched structures. These pieces sit between drawing and low-relief sculpture, where thread becomes line, surface, and form. As the work lifts from its ground, it interacts with light, casting shadows that shift and extend the composition beyond the stitch itself.
Alongside thread, I incorporate materials such as metal leaf, paper, paint, and ink. These elements are not added for decoration, but to extend the surface and introduce contrast in texture, density, and reflection.
The work draws from memory, landscape, and lived experience. Natural forms such as seaweed and plant structures appear throughout, not as direct representations, but as responses to what is observed and felt.
Thread, for me, is a way of holding time, meaning, and feeling. Each piece marks an ongoing return to making, to attention, and to the connections that run through the work.
© Anna Hutchinson. All artwork, images, and content are protected under copyright.
Please don’t use anything without permission — I’m happy to discuss licensing or collaboration.