Marine Beaufils’s La Sentinelle is a needlepoint series initiated in 2022 and completed in February 2024 and a sequel to Absorbed by the Sentinel. It consists of 14 pictures, each measuring 56x46 cm, that meticulously replicate scenes from the 1986 video game The Sentinel by Geoff Crammond. The game was initially developed for the BBC Micro and later ported to the ZX Spectrum by Mike Follin. Each needlepoint in the series uses a unique color duo from the game’s eight-shade palette to illuminate the scenes. The precise transfer of the game’s pixelated images onto the embroidery canvas creates a luminous effect that mimics the appearance of the original cathode-ray screens.
This pixel-to-canvas transformation highlights the resemblance between the pixel grid and the embroidery grid, a recurring theme in the artist's work, which also includes projects inspired by other classic video games like Super Metroid, Robocop 2, Castlevania III and Maniac Mansion. As Beaufils explains on her website, the project involves two key stages: dreaming and transcription. In the dreaming stage, the artist visualizes scenes from beloved video games, recalling the wonder and nostalgia associated with them. This is followed by the transcription stage, where the artist meticulously counts and arranges the pixels on the embroidery grid, translates them into colored threads, and executes the needlepoint over an extended period, adhering to a detailed plan.
Marine Beaufils is a French embroidery artist. She reproduces the world on a different grid than the one that is imposed to us. On embroidery’s matrix, she tries to fit the details of the video games she loves, the vignettes of her favorite movies, the readings that have marked her or the colors of astronomical views that fascinate her
Read more about the project on EDGE magazine (2023)
LINK: Marine Beaufils (via Things Magazine)
