Carola van Dyke is a contemporary textile and fibre artist, and her medium is thread. She creates wall-hangings and sculptures with tiny individual floating stitches which explore her fascination with colours, textures, layers and light. Her practice is rooted in the balance between the ephemeral and the permanent, observing how to replicate nature with thread, both in bloom and in decay, while reflecting on the growing awareness of our environment and the need for preservation. This dramatic, curious approach represents nature in a delicate and vulnerable manner, with the hanging threads creating subtle movement when walking past, keeping them alive and breathing.
Her creative approach lies in merging innovation and tradition through constant research and experimentation, refining her art skills for each new piece. She wishes to achieve delicate yet powerful results by pushing the boundaries of embroidery, thereby bringing forward a more refined and unexpected outcome. Quality, attention to detail, vulnerability and strength are all embedded in her choice of materials. She strives to both confuse and amaze with her work: taking such a familiar and everyday medium as thread and transforming it into a form that feels unfamiliar, surprising and full of wonder.
Natural and organic forms are a recurring theme in her work, the magic found in small details: insects, wings, flowers, plants, roots and their connections. Beauty has been a driving force in her work, and she draws deep inspiration from Dutch 17th-century still life and vanitas paintings. By examining these historic sources through a contemporary lens, she seeks to unearth something new and unexpected, weaving time-honoured symbolism with modern sensibilities. With the art of stitching being a painstakingly slow process, it is not always the most obvious decision to create work on a large scale, yet for Carola, this challenge is essential. Eye-catching, fragile beauty is ultimately what she is after, and scale amplifies both the delicacy and the impact of her pieces. By transforming thread into something unexpected, Carola invites viewers to pause, look closer, and re-examine their own relationship with beauty, impermanence and the natural world.
In 2025, Carola made her debut at Collect Art Fair in London and at VOLTA, Art Basel, presenting her embroidery artworks to an international audience. These landmark exhibitions marked an important milestone in her career, positioning her unique voice within the wider contemporary art world and affirming the relevance of textile art on the global stage.
Before embracing the embroidery art, her Textile Taxidermy have been part of the interior scene for the last decade and have sold worldwide. Her extensive international client list includes Liberty London, Bergdorf Goodman NY, , Knoll Textiles, Joseph Abboud to name a few, as well as many private collectors and international celebrities.
Carola’s embroidery art is represented by Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design, a leading international gallery of contemporary and functional art based in the Netherlands.
Carola van Dyke is based on the south coast of the UK.
Bespoke commissions, private and commercial, taken.
