Louise Riley’s Stunning Mattress Art

July 28, 2011

Discarded mattresses — like abandoned strollers, broken bottles, and mate-less shoes — are so ubiquitous that they go unnoticed by most city dwellers. But London-based embroidery artist Louise Riley, who we spotted on iGNANT, sees them as a ready-made canvas, the perfect place to transform her pencil sketches into beautiful textile art. “I use the mattress as a backgroundless background that holds weight of experience conceptually, spiritually and physically,” she explains. “Blood, sweat and tears like tree rings in its core. Its presence in our rights of passage, our sleep, rest, thoughts, dreams, the theater of life spilled out onto it.” Click through to get a better look at her incredibly-detailed works of art.