"Is this embroidery?" a woman turns the brooch in her hands, bringing it closer to the light. A sculptural form, interplay of shadows, meticulous attention to the back side. It doesn't resemble what's typically associated with cross-stitching—flat pictures on the wall, decorative panels, grandma's handiwork.

"It's sculpture," Maria Kochneva replies. Then adds: "I just work with thread instead of clay or bronze."

An Artistic Choice

Where does the line lie between technical mastery and true artistic expression? Maria Kochneva works in a centuries-old technique: cross-stitch embroidery. But her creations don't hang on walls. They live on the body, shift with movement, and catch light from different angles.

"A craftsman reproduces a technique," she says. "An artist creates an image. I use embroidery as a medium—but I create sculpture."

For ten years, Maria produced technically flawless work. One-meter panels, photorealistic portraits, landscapes with meticulous composition. The craftsmanship was there—but something vital was missing: artistic voice.

"I could embroider a still life so perfectly that people mistook it for a photo," Maria recalls. "Technically impressive. But I was repeating someone else's image. Where was my voice as an artist?"

She moved away from large-scale work. A question emerged: what if embroidery didn't have to be flat?

"I don't just embroider anything," Maria explains. "I choose forms I want to explore. Why an owl? Because there's something in its gaze that can't be conveyed on a flat surface. It needs volume. Why a toadstool? Because its form is pure sculpture. A convex cap, a cylindrical stem—geometry that demands to be three-dimensional."

An artistic decision—not a technical challenge. A choice: what deserves to become an object, and what should remain a flat image.

Thinking Sculpturally

An owl. Seven centimeters tall. Every feather sculpted, the head slightly turned, the gaze shifting with the angle of view. An object you can walk around, study from every side.

"I don't embroider pictures," Maria notes. "I create forms. That's the difference between an illustrator and a sculptor."

A sculptor thinks in volume. How will light fall across a surface? How will the form read from different angles? The viewer turns the object, discovering it anew.

Each piece begins with a question: what emotion do I want to convey? What should someone feel when they hold this?

"Flat work keeps a distance," Maria explains. "You stand before a picture, looking at it. A three-dimensional piece invites contact. You hold it, feel its weight, texture, the warmth of the material. Intimate art."

A five-centimeter brooch requires a different artistic language than a one-meter panel. Scale changes perception. Small forms demand closer, more detailed attention. The viewer brings them near, examining every detail.

"When something fits in your palm, your interaction with it changes. You're not standing back—you're holding it, turning it, studying it up close. A different type of artistic experience."

Light as a Material

"In flat work, light is static," Maria explains. "In three-dimensional form, light changes with every movement. A brooch lives—because the light on it lives. I decide where to place a highlight, where to leave a shadow, how to guide the viewer's eye."

Stitches laid at different angles reflect light differently. Thread has texture, sheen. On a curved surface, the same color may appear lighter or darker depending on the viewpoint.

Beads add points of light. Maria calculates exactly where they're needed—not for decoration, but to control light and shape a visual effect.

"I work with light like a sculptor. Form without the right light is dead. Light brings the material to life."

Tradition, Transformed

Maria grew up immersed in the Russian embroidery tradition. Seven years in a children's art school, a diploma with honors. Slavic patterns, classical motifs, a cultural code passed down through generations.

But what does a contemporary artist do with that legacy?

"I don't copy old patterns," she says. "I feel them, I understand them—and I create something new that lives within the same cultural space."

For Maria, tradition is a living material. In Serbia—another Slavic culture with its own textile heritage—this became especially clear.

"A traditional Slavic rhombus in flat embroidery is a symbol, a sign," she explains. "But when I translate it into three dimensions, it stops being just a pattern. It becomes an object you can walk around. Perception changes. A symbol becomes a form—and the form changes its meaning."

The cultural code is translated into the language of contemporary art. Slavic motifs appear on sculptural forms—not as ethnographic replicas, but as personal interpretations.

"Tradition lives only when it evolves. If we just repeat what was done a hundred years ago, that's museumification. Dead art. I want Slavic embroidery to speak today."

Art on the Body

Why is this art, not just ornament?

Body art has existed since ancient times—from Egyptian adornments to contemporary jewelry. But Maria came to this field from the textile arts, not from jewelry design. A different aesthetic. A different formal language.

"Art doesn't have to hang on a wall," she observes. "It can live on the body, move, change with every step. A different way of existing."

Every piece is a unique artistic solution. Maria doesn't mass-produce. Even when repeating a form—a mushroom, a flower, an abstraction—each time she creates a new object. A different curve, a new distribution of light, a fresh emotional resonance.

"It's like Giacometti," Maria explains. "He repeated the same motif—elongated figures. But each sculpture was unique. Because the artist solves the problem anew each time. I do the same."

A Cultural Dialogue

Maria runs an international educational platform, but her focus isn't on teaching technique—it's on exploring how craft becomes art. She's created a space for cultural dialogue, where Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian embroidery meet not as artifacts, but as living creative practices.

"We don't just learn technique. We study how cultures speak through ornament. How tradition can be contemporary. How a symbol, once made three-dimensional, begins to resonate differently."

Messages arrive from Japan, Brazil, the US: "I've embroidered all my life—but only now do I see it can be art."

Exhibitions are in the works—to showcase the evolution from flat works to sculptural forms. To visualize the transformation of craft into art. To show: here is traditional technique—and here is a contemporary artistic statement built upon it.

"I want to prove that cross-stitch can exist within contemporary art," Maria says. "Not as an ethnographic relic, but as a living artistic practice. Sculpture in thread. Why not?"

A New Form

It's 2026. Her pieces are worn in Germany, Austria, the US, Serbia. Miniature sculptures, palm-sized, traveling the world.

Recently, she created a piece combining sculptural embroidery with bead weaving and metal elements. Three traditions, three techniques in a single object. Each retains its own language—but together they create a new artistic statement.

"The more I work, the clearer it becomes: I'm creating a new form," according to Maria. "Not an improved old one—but truly a new one. Sculpture in thread is its own artistic direction. And it's just beginning."

Cross-stitch embroidery has existed for hundreds of years. Maria Kochneva showed it can exist differently—on the body instead of walls, as art rather than decoration, sculptural instead of flat.

Tradition met modernity. A new form emerged.

Written By- Peter Vickers