Amanda McCavour: Double Shadow

Double Shadow is an expansive, site-specific installation by Toronto-based textile and embroidery artist Amanda McCavour.

Drawn from her Black and White Studies series, the work brings together more than 400 stitched elements that transform the Museum’s Atrium wall into a field of airy, lace-like forms. Each piece hovers just off the wall’s surface, animated by shifting light and shadow.

McCavour creates many of these works by hand-embroidering, appliquéing and machine-stitching onto a special water-soluble fabric. Once the stitching is complete, the support is washed away, leaving behind a self-supporting thread drawing held together through layered and interwoven connections alone. What remains is only thread—fragile in appearance yet surprisingly resilient in form. 

Throughout the installation, intricate botanical motifs mingle with bold geometric shapes and dazzling patterns, gathering onto richly textured surfaces. Seen from a distance, the elements form striking graphic compositions; up close, they unfold into dense clusters of fine detail and careful handwork. Double Shadow invites visitors to slow down and look closely, tracing how thread, space, and light interact. As individual elements accumulate and connect, McCavour’s work offers a quiet reflection on material possibility and shared structures, suggesting how forms, like living organisms, find strength together.