Death & the Maiden

Rebecca Hampton creates embroidery inspired by Victorian mourning practices and the fragility of our own mortality. Drawing influence from Post-Mortem Photography and historic funeral customs each piece becomes it’s own beautiful little Memento Mori.

– Rebecca Hampton –

Rebecca is an illustrator and embroidery artist from a sleepy town on the Welsh boarder. Her needlework is fuelled by her love for anything vintage, macabre and Victorian. Within her work you will find literary themes, pagan traditions and a devotion to all things unearthly.

You can follow Rebecca on Instagram & visit her shop.

My needlework explores our relationship with death through exploration of different cultural practices and historical references. Influence is drawn from Gothic Victoriana, witchcraft and medieval theories of life and death.

Combining the poetry and superstition of Victorian death customs within Memento Mori I create visuals rich in mortality and the fragility of life.

I endeavour to create embroideries that reflect that same beauty found in Post-Mortem photography. The stillness of the black and white coupled with the richness of Victorian fashion. Roses and evergreens often used in dressing the deceased create a wonderfully macabre and poetic subject matter. Aiming to entice the viewer in, beyond the dark veil to a realm of superstition and death.