Beatriz Braga
Hand Embroidery BA
Royal School of Needlework
Graduates: 2025
Specialisms: Embroidery / Textile Innovation/Textile Art / Sustainable Fashion/Textiles
My location: London, United Kingdom
Beatriz Braga
First Name: Beatriz
Last Name: Braga
University / College: Royal School of Needlework
Course / Program: Hand Embroidery BA
Graduates: 2025
Specialisms: Embroidery / Textile Innovation/Textile Art / Sustainable Fashion/Textiles
My Location: London, United Kingdom
About
Taking the ideas of tactility and haptics, Beatriz Braga is a Brazilian hand embroidery artist and textile designer who innovates traditional techniques with the use of unconventional materials. Based between Sao Paulo and London, her work is built around intuitive material led processes to create textural translations of natural and abstract inspiration.With the urge to produce emotional and corporeal reactions from her audience, Beatriz’s work plays on the haptic essence of hand embroidery. The exploration of unconventional materials is crafted through traditional techniques to produce organic designs where the roughness and fragility of our natural universe becomes palpable. Her work is located on the balance between the experimental and the luxurious, and her research of what it means to design with material-led processes is a continuous driver of her organic practice.During her study at the Royal School of Needlework, Beatriz had the opportunity not only to be awarded with the Victoria Adams Bursary, Friends Award and Taylor Merchants Company three times, but was also able to have broad work experience with various household names in the industry, such as Erdem, Hand and Lock, Zandra Rhodes, Prada, Versace and Dolce & Gabbana. As a student, she was able to develop an impactful body of work for a Live Project run by Alexander McQueen’s embroidery team, a breakthrough experience in terms of bridging the exploration of unconventional materials and luxurious embroidery. Her time at Hand and Lock was also extremely valuable, as it gave her a clear understanding of what high end embroidery can be, as well as being a great example of a successful business based on hand embroidery.
ALCHEMIA - THE DESIGN OF TIME
ALCHEMIA - The Design of Time, a 2x2 meter art installation, is inspired by how time can act as a designer through a series of alchemical processes and how this can contribute to a new understanding of what it means to design. By looking at processes like oxidisation, friction, sedimentation, Beatriz rethinks her own creative practice by including tarnished and worn materials. Whilst navigating the universe of natural abstractions, the artist reflects on how she can take time as a creator, allowing this reflection to lead her to innovative materials and processes and breaching the barriers of how embroidery can be conceived. Inspired by the work produced by textile artists dedicated to the research of biomaterials, ALCHEMIA shows how embroidery can be revolutionized by co-creating with non-human actors, like “time” or “nature”. Surrounded by organic inspiration, like meteorites, marbles and other sedimented rocks, the artist produces a piece where there are no linear or self-contained shapes: every element is shredded and diffuse, allowing the audience to be immersed in this haptic universe. Starring as the main part of this design is an exploration of latex rubber, that, once peeled from a plastic base, scrunches up and creates folds that are organically disposed in the design – an intrinsically material-led process. This is then reappropriated by the artist, through highly specialised hand embroidery techniques, pushing even further the materiality of this organic aesthetic. Without controlling every step of the process, Beatriz allows the materials, such as different types of repurposed fabrics, crystals, goldwork wires and tarnished and salvaged chains and jewellery bits, to dictate the direction of the creation. ALCHEMIA is, hence, a signature piece of Beatriz's style of creating and sets her apart, presenting an innovative approach to embroidery, be it in terms of scale, process or materiality.
Competitions
