Carolyn Harper creates portrait works that merge textile construction with embedded testimony. Her large-format quilt portraits are hand sewn, treating fabric as both surface and structure—layered, stitched, and made to hold a face with care.
Alongside the quilts, she makes hand-embroidered batik portraits. The process combines a dye-based ground with drawn-out threads, resulting in images that carry both pattern and presence. Across the series, Harper centers people she has or had a relationship with, and pairs each portrait with a brief statement from the person depicted.
She approaches the project as more than depiction: the portraits are designed to keep individual humanity visible, and to emphasize redemption and second chances in the face of systemic injustice.
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