Imogen Morris is a contemporary British artist based in Birmingham, where she works from her studio in Digbeth, one of the city’s most dynamic creative quarters. Her practice sits at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, and craft, pushing the traditional boundaries of portraiture through an innovative use of nail and thread.
Morris is best known for her distinctive thread-based works, in which fine strands are tensioned around carefully positioned nails to form faces, figures, and abstracted forms. Using thread as both line and surface, she builds images through layers, allowing light and shadow to play across the work as the viewer moves around it. This process creates pieces that exist somewhere between two and three dimensions, combining the intimacy of drawing with the physical presence of sculpture. Paint, collage, and mixed media are often incorporated into her surfaces, adding depth and contrast to the delicacy of the thread.
Her work is informed by traditional hand-embroidery techniques, but reimagined within a contemporary fine art context. Through this approach, Morris challenges historic distinctions between “fine art” and “craft,” elevating textile-based processes into bold, expressive artworks that explore identity, emotion, and the act of mark-making itself.
Imogen Morris holds a First Class BA (Hons) in Fine Art and Art History from Kingston University, following a Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at the University of Gloucestershire. After graduating, she spent several years working outside of her personal practice before returning fully to her art in 2018. This period of reflection and renewed focus played a key role in the development of her signature nail-and-thread technique.
Since re-establishing her practice, Morris has exhibited widely across the UK in both solo and group exhibitions, taken part in major art fairs, and completed residencies and commissioned projects. Her work is held in private and public collections in the UK and internationally, and she continues to expand her practice through experimentation, collaboration, and sustained studio-based research.
Working from her Digbeth studio, Imogen Morris continues to develop a body of work that is tactile, innovative, and visually striking—offering a contemporary redefinition of drawing through thread.
8, King Street