Dana Awartani’s artwork is focused on women and their individual identities, portraying their beauty and grace through her embroidery and tapestry designs. She has been described by other tapestry artists as an “artists’ dream”. The age-old profession of stitching has served many people well throughout history, and the experience gained by working with nature in such a tangible form is not easily duplicated by machine or even human embroidery. For this reason alone, many people who choose to stitch as a profession will find that each individual project will be a new and different journey through the art of needlework.
Awartani started to learn how to weave when she was young growing up during the reign of her great grandmother who was a highly respected community leader. It was said that no one who came into the community was considered a stranger, and that only the strongest could continue on in the occupation of being a embroider. After her grandmother passed on, Dana continued on with her education and studied art at college. As part of her studies, she honed her craft and began learning about the importance of representing life in her work, and what it means to have a national identity. Once she mastered the skills needed for creating her own designs, she decided to create a collection of tapestries that would span many nationalities and ages, and showcase the diversity of women in their everyday lives.
Each tapestry is completely unique in it’s design, and only Awartani has the right to create it. Each of the over sixty tapestries in her award winning collection have been inspired by the stories and lives of many different women from all over the world. As a result, each piece represents a true woman from a different nationality, age, and lifestyle, all bound together by their love of needlework and their desire to show the world what they do. In doing so, Awartani has made a name for herself as one of the most talented tapestry artists in the world today, and she hopes to continue to spread her love of stitching and needlework throughout the world. She feels that the encouragement of helping to bring people together comes from her desire to help people feel proud of who they are and be true to who they are inside.