Cross-stitch embroidery – Mark Scammell

November 5, 2025December 13, 2025 markscammell Art, Cross-stitch, Design, Embroidery, Uncategorized

Pastel Armageddon

A series of works reminiscing on youthful years in the 1980s spent under the threat of all out nuclear war and subsequent personal annihilation.

Final Day
Cross-stitch and others
840mm x 768mm
2025

Green and Pleasant Land
(Three fire units, each with sixteen missile pads – Lincolnshire)
Cross-stitch and others
346mm x 858mm
2025

July 5, 2023November 5, 2025 markscammell Art, Cross-stitch, Design, Embroidery, Uncategorized

Tape Loops

Three variations of tape loop.

Tape Loop 1
Cross-stitch and others
715mm x 765mm
2023

Tape Loop 2
Cross-stitch and others
715mm x 765mm
2023

Tape Loop 3
Cross-stitch and others
715mm x 765mm
2023

January 16, 2023December 13, 2025 markscammell Art, Cross-stitch, Design, Embroidery, Uncategorized

Passed

Passed, which takes its name from a one word sentence in James Joyce’s Ulysses, looks at fluidity, transience and memory in a modern, capitalist society.

To quote Karl Marx, “All that is solid melts into air” and here the focus of that flux is on closed down shops and businesses, the residue of 21st Century consumerism. A walk along today’s High Street provides an encounter with the ghost images of the past, the remnants of what happens when retail fails to keep up with the demands of capitalism.

The businesses themselves may have closed long ago, but their afterimages live on in full public view, a sombre reminder that Omnia Transit (Everything Passes).

Prime Retail
Cross-stitch and others
270mm x 322mm
2022

Mono Ex-Retail

Six works based on original photographs taken through the front windows of closed down shops and businesses, as found at various locations. Each a memento mori to the death of retail.

Cogita Mori (Remember Death)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Nil Omne (All Is Nothing)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Animam Agere (To Have One’s Last Breath)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Mortem Obire (To Face Death)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Respice Finem (Consider The End)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Omnia Transit (Everything Passes)
Cross-stitch and others
727mm x 1170mm
2022

Four Shrines

Four small shrines, each dedicated to a closed down business, photographed and given its own hand sewn Latin reminder.

Mors Immature (An Untimely Death)
Mixed Media
360mm x 260mm x 38mm
2023

Extremum Vitae Spiritum Edere (To Give Up The Ghost)
Mixed Media
360mm x 260mm x 38mm
2023

Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus (We Are But Dust And Shadow)
Mixed Media
360mm x 260mm x 38mm
2023

Mors Vincit Omnia (Death Conquers All)
Mixed Media
360mm x 260mm x 38mm
2023

Requiescat In Pace

Ten bags representing closed down Dublin shops and businesses as mentioned in the works of James Joyce.

Gouache, Letraset and thread on brown paper bags
Each bag 170mm x 230mm
2023

February 27, 2022November 4, 2025 markscammell Art, Cross-stitch, Design, Embroidery, Uncategorized

Previous Dwellings

Four embroidered works based on photographs of homes in the process of being demolished.

“…nor the charm of naked walls with their flowered papers and their shadows of mantlepieces in apartment houses under demolition” André Breton Nadja (1928)

Previous Dwelling 1
Embroidered canvas
190mm x 270mm
2021

Previous Dwelling 2
Embroidered canvas
300mm x 220mm
2021

Previous Dwelling 3
Embroidered canvas
240mm x 280mm
2021

Previous Dwelling 4
Embroidered canvas
200mm x 290mm
2022

January 12, 2022October 14, 2025 markscammell Art, Design, Embroidery

Grey Areas

Eight works that reinterpret perceptions of grey. Liminal spaces within the urban landscape that may be considered as being grey in character (multi-story carparks, new towns, metro stations etc) are reimagined in cool and warm greys, with added blues and pinks.