Marine Beaufils is a French embroidery artist whose meticulous work draws on the analogy between pixels and needlepoints, as she translates scenes from her favorite video games, movies, or scientific imagery from screen to embroidery canvas. This process freezes a fragment of a larger narrative, converting backlit scenes into a familiar medium that evokes a homey feeling and a vintage aura. The embroidered scenes thus bear an ambiguous quality as they appear suspended between a technological medium and an artisanal practice.
In 2022, she began work on La Sentinelle, a series of 14 pieces measuring 55×46 cm, completed in February 2024. Each needlepoint depicts a scene from the video game The Sentinel, created by Geoff Crammond in 1986, and is illuminated in two colors chosen from the game’s original eight-shade palette.
Marine Beaufils describes her creative process as unfolding in two steps. The first step, dreaming, involves closing her eyes to recall scenes from video games— The Sentinel but also Metroid and Maniac Mansion—that sparked her sense of wonder. She remembers the strangeness of crossing these surreal landscapes and then seeks out the original media, whether cartridges or floppy disks. The second step, transcription, is where she translates these scenes onto an embroidery grid. She starts by counting the pixels in width and height, then arranging them on the new grid, initially drawing them in black and white before assigning colors. Once everything is precisely mapped, the meticulous needlepoint work begins.
The resulting images evoke a deep nostalgia and sense of wonder, ranging from abstract patterns to surreal landscapes that originated on screen and have landed on the canvas.
All images © Marine Beaufils.
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