Erick Medel

Los Angeles-based artist Erick Medel (b. 1992, Puebla, Mexico) creates intimate portraits of immigrant life using a sewing machine and thread much like one would use a paintbrush and oils. His canvas is deep blue heavyweight denim, which provides a dark ground that sets off the brightly colored threads that are his chosen medium. Medel draws inspiration from the vibrant Boyle Heights neighborhood outside of his studio, capturing street festivals, sidewalk scenes, and quiet moments in works that tenderly celebrate the joys of a thriving immigrant community.

Medel began working with textiles while completing his MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. This grew into an interest in soft sculpture that eventually became “thread paintings'' executed on heavy, dark denim stretched over a frame. Using a sewing machine as a drawing tool, he creates stitches that act like brushstrokes: quick staccato stitches emanate energy and movement, soft tender stitches follow the contours of a rose or even evoke the hazy spray of baby’s breath in a floral bouquet. Threads of different hues commingle on the surface, mixing visually rather than physically to create deft shading and texture. The resulting work appears soft when viewed from a distance, but up close it vibrates with expressive visual energy.

Medel moved to the United States from Mexico as a teenager, and he positions his work in the context of the wider history of immigrant labor. Denim provides a sturdy substrate to hold the weight of the built-up threads, but it also comes with its own context. It is Americana, both utilitarian and high fashion, but at its core is a fabric designed to protect the working class. This includes Medel’s father, a gardener, whose denim protected him from thorns. Medel’s floral compositions draw from the rich history of still life, but also serve as portraits of someone’s labor, honoring the street sellers and neighborhood florists whose hustle produces such beauty.

Medel elevates everyday moments large and small – a child holding the hand of her parent as they walk down the street, an arrangement from the local florist, couples dancing to sidewalk Banda music – snapshots of life that could easily be lost to time. Medel’s work beautifully conveys the joys as well as the hardships that together cohere into a vibrant portrait both personal and universal.

Artist Instagram: @erick.medel