THREAded marks
A project by Cristiana – tattoo artist, art therapist, ritualist of skin and soul
In Threaded Marks, the gesture of the needle becomes sacred—whether it draws ink into skin or thread through canvas. Each mark is intentional. Each stitch, each line, is a bridge between body and memory, between pain and beauty, between the seen and the felt.
my work exists in the space where tattooing and sewing mirror each other. The skin, like fabric, is pierced, opened, and transformed. The canvas, like the body, receives the weight of story, emotion, and time. In both, the act is delicate and precise, but never just aesthetic—it is ritual, it is healing.
Here, tattooing is not just body art—it is a rite of passage, a wound made visible so it can be honored, understood, and ultimately integrated. And sewing is not simply craft—it is a mending of what has been torn, a suturing of inner and outer worlds.
Threaded Marks is a space where gestures become ceremonies, and where the needle—whether dipped in ink or threaded with color—writes on the surface what lives within. This is not decoration.
This is transformation.
This is not just art.
This is remembering.
This is the place where skin speaks—and the thread listens.
Introduction
In Threaded Marks, the gesture of the needle becomes sacred—whether it draws ink into skin or thread through canvas. Each mark is intentional. Each stitch, each line, is a bridge between body and memory, between pain and beauty, between the seen and the felt.
This project was born from my own practice — a personal journey of sewing, painting, and ritual. Through it, I explored how colour, thread, and repetition could surface memory, emotion, and healing.
My Experience
I created a series of monochrome canvases: each painted in a single colour, then sewn with threads of the same hue, in different tonalities and thicknesses.
The sewing was never guided by aesthetics. It was guided by emotion. Each stitch, each density, became a physical trace of what I was feeling in that moment.
Each colour carried its own archetype and With it came different emotions — some heavy, some light, some raw, some expansive. The result was always different: the canvas became a mirror of the inner state, shaped by colour and feeling together.
The series unfolded through eight colours:
The primaries: red, yellow, blue
The secondaries: orange, green, violet
The absolutes: black and white
To deepen the ritual, each colour was paired with music and food that reflected its archetypal essence, creating a multisensory dialogue that touched body and spirit alike.
The Vision
Having lived this project myself, I now dream of opening it as a workshop for others.
The idea:
Participants create their own monochrome sewn canvas
Sewing as a direct response to emotion, guided by colour archetypes
Exploring how each colour evokes different feelings and different visual results
Accompanied by music, food, journaling, and open discussion
Closing with tea and shared reflection
Each participant keeps their canvas — a woven memory of their journey
Threaded Marks as a workshop is still in planning, but its intention is clear: to offer a space of ritual, colour, and mending — where art becomes a practice of healing.
Philosophy
In Threaded Marks, tattooing and sewing mirror each other.
The skin, like fabric, is pierced, opened, and transformed.
The canvas, like the body, receives the weight of story, emotion, and time.
This is not decoration.
This is transformation.
This is not just art.
This is remembering.
This is the place where skin speaks — and the thread listens.
