Livia Papiernik is a Franco-British visual storyteller pushing the boundaries of how we view textiles in contemporary art. As a mixed-media artist, she uses painting, patchwork, and embroidery to create work that instigates wonder and awe. 

Livia’s work explores social, political, and personal issues with humor and colour. These topics, which are often hard to discuss, are made more accessible through her dream-like depictions of a parallel universe. She often confronts her personal insecurities by re-narrating her everyday life, the objects around her, and her home. Through her work, she creates portals to new realities, enabling a sense of escapism for herself and her audience. The juxtaposition of beauty and tragedy is a theme that is apparent throughout her work. Mythology and folklore inspire her narratives and the way in which she encompasses surrealism and fantasy in her textile artworks. 

ETHOS

Papiernik graduated from the Royal School of Needlework in 2018 and went on to complete an MA in Textiles at the Royal College of Art, where she was awarded the Roger Walls Burns Scholarship. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and her clients include Lock & Co, Huntsman and Sons, Zoffany, Alexander McQueen, and Conrad. Alongside her studio practice, she is a Senior Lecturer at the Royal School of Needlework and co-founder of BOUND, an art collective dedicated to raising the profile of embroidery within the contemporary arts.

At the heart of everything I do is a belief in the transformative power of making by hand. Textile has for centuries been one of humanity's most intimate languages, a way of marking, remembering, and telling the stories that words alone cannot hold. In a world that moves too fast, I see the act of slow making as both a creative practice and a quiet act of resistance, a return to the values first championed by the Arts and Crafts Movement, that skill, craft, and intention matter deeply.

My work seeks to challenge the way we perceive textiles — not as decoration or domesticity, but as a vital and contemporary force in art and culture. Through embroidery, I bring wonder, humour, and awe into the everyday; I create portals into the imaginary, spaces where beauty and tragedy coexist, and where the familiar is made strange and new. Stitch, for me, is not simply a technique, it is a tool for communication, connection, and storytelling.

This ethos carries through everything — my studio practice, my collaborations with luxury brands, my years working with Alexander McQueen, and my teaching. I am committed to championing craft as a living, evolving discipline, and to inspiring the next generation of makers to find their own voice within it.