When Odette Campbell entered a Bargello needlepoint of Digbeth’s architecture into an open call at Seventh Circle in Birmingham, she was hoping, like most entrants, for a place on the wall, and what she won was the whole room, with a private view thrown in.
Odette is a Black Country fibre artist who works in Bargello needlepoint, the flat-stitch technique that builds flame and wave patterns row by row and is traditionally tied to Renaissance Italy. Her subject is the architecture of Birmingham and the Black Country, from Brutalist concrete to the industrial weight of Digbeth. Stitched in wool, those rigid forms soften and warm, and colour slides across the surface until solid walls seem to move. Bridget Riley and Anni Albers sit among her influences, and so does Black Country Type.
The Unfinished Arches, Odette Campbell
Renaissance was the first open call run by Seventh Circle, and its brief invited artists to explore transformation and the courage to begin again. Odette answered by dropping stitches on purpose and letting the canvas show, with spray paint and ink layered beneath the wool. Those gaps and loosened threads set growth against decay, so each piece reads as a building caught mid-change. The prize was a solo exhibition, and Under Construction, on from 16 October to 1 November, is the result.
Bargello embroideries alongside architectural references, by Odette Campbell
What stays with us is the chain of hands behind it. An Arts Council DYCP grant funded the Bargello research that led here. A local gallery then offered an emerging artist a room of her own. Gallery director Marie Hutton describes Renaissance as a chance to plant a flag for physical, human craft and invest in local talent. The team has watched the new work take shape over several months and calls it pure joy. That is how makers have always grown: someone hands over a needle, or a wall to hang on, and trusts the rest. Most of us can name the person who did that for us.
Bargello embroidery inspired by nature at Parham House by Odette Campbell
The work carries that neighbourliness too. Floral paintings from Parham House in Sussex sit beside West Midlands concrete, a pairing that mirrors the Black Country itself, where industrial heritage and green space share a postcode. Embroidery has long been filed under domestic craft, and this show asks visitors to see stitch as a spatial, political practice. As Odette puts it, “A city is never finished, and neither is a practice or a person.”
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Further Information:
Under Construction: Odette Campbell is at Seventh Circle on Bowyer Street, Birmingham. until 1 November 2026
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Image Credits:
Lead: Bargello by Odette Campbell.
All further images as credited in captions.