Your key to the city's hidden doors

These days, you don’t have to be an heir to the throne to justify having your portrait done, nor do you don’t need a royal inheritance to pay for one. Why? Because more and more contemporary artists are loosening up classical portraiture, divesting the genre of its stuffy elitism and stratospheric prices.

That’s why I plan on having my face stitched on fabric.

Call me crazy, but when I find the funds to immortalize my mug, I’m going the way of the needle— and I know who’s going to do the stitching!

For years I’ve admired the work of French artist Justin Morin. Using embroidery as his main medium, Morin makes art out of different types of threads. From chunky macramé sculptures and hand-embroidered stickers to Birkin bags stitched in silk on cotton fabric, he gives a conceptual dimension to handicrafts by modernizing their subjects and settings.

“It all started with the notion of the link; how relationships between people are created, how they cross one another, come together and come apart. The vocabulary used to explain these ideas resonated for me visually in thread,” says the 29-yr-old artist.

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