Chris Roberts-Antieau (b. 1950, Ann Arbor, Michigan) is a self-taught artist known for her distinctive work in fabric appliqué and thread painting. For more than four decades, she has used the sewing machine as a drawing tool, building intricate narrative works that move between humor and mortality, tenderness and absurdity, and the ordinary and uncanny.

Roberts-Antieau began sewing at an early age, making baby clothes and plush toys for her son which later turned into a small business. In the 1970s, she began creating appliquéd clothing and objects before moving the appliqué itself into the frame, a shift that became the foundation of her visual language. Her subsequent experimentation with free-motion embroidery, which she calls “thread painting,” allowed her to introduce line, depth, light, and shadow into increasingly complex textile compositions.

Her practice has since expanded beyond the traditional picture plane to include embroidered taxidermy, Tragic Snow Globes, Birds of Prey Dresses, and Murder Houses. Across these bodies of work, Roberts-Antieau draws from animals, folklore, belief, human behavior, and everyday experience, finding humor and wonder alongside the stranger realities of being alive.

Roberts-Antieau’s work has been exhibited and collected internationally and is held in major public and private collections. She lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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