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Igła (The Needle) – Mixed Media Photography On Wood

Igła (The Needle) by Robin Rivers is an original piece of mixed media collage on wood from The Female Gaze series. I created this piece using my own photography shot in Northeastern France and creative commons zero archival images from The Met Open Archives. Other elements include acrylic paint and medium. 

Inquire about this piece HERE.

How I source and care for historical materials → Sources

Description

The Original

Igła (The Needle) by Robin Rivers is an original piece of mixed media collage on wood from The Female Gaze Series. I created this piece using my own photography shot in northeastern France and creative commons zero archival images from The Met Open Archives. Other elements include acrylic paint and medium. 

The piece measures 23×36″ (w/h) and is mounted on wood. Shipping will be calculated based on location.  Please note that colours and contrast vary between different monitors.  The colours may not match your monitor’s display exactly. Additionally, copyright of my artwork does not transfer with purchase.

The Inspiration for Igła (The Needle) by Robin Rivers

Through The Female Gaze series, I explore cultural memory by reconstructing medieval patriarchal iconography through a feminine lens. Each piece transforms my contemporary photography—often combined with archival materials—into complex narratives that place women in positions of power. By layering the medieval stained glass form with photography shot across various locations in France, I create temporal dialogues that reframe the cultural narrative of women in history.
 
In Igła, I reconstructed the Arthurian myth of Elaine of Astolat — more widely known as The Lady of Shalott — reimagined as a window into her true power. In the most familiar version, Elaine dies of heartbreak when Lancelot fails to return her love. Her body is set adrift down the river toward Camelot. Yet, she is also cast as an accomplished weaver, seamstress, and keeper of Lancelot’s shield. This piece lives in that tension between passive victim and sovereign force.
 
Here, she is the needle: the instrument through which fate is threaded. She is the unseen commander in the lives of men. I titled the work Igła — the Polish word for needle — as a nod to the Teutonic legends of Poland and my own cultural roots. The ornate battle shield, with its figure suspended as if floating, serves as an homage to the legend’s original imagery and a deliberate subversion of it. I chose the background photography, taken at a lake near Orquevaux, France, for its fae-like quality that captures the liminal space where myth and reality blur. 
 

Sources

  • Original photography from Robin Rivers shot in December 2024 near Orquevaux, France.
  • The Met Open Archives: Burgonet (Front View); Armorer Filippo Negroli; Italian; dated 1543; Link to image
  • The Met Open Archives: Reliquary Bust of Saint Balbina (back view); South Netherlandish; ca. 1520–30; Link to image
  • The Met Open Archives: Three Ceremonial Arrowheads; Bohemian, probably Prague; ca. 1437–39; Link to image
  • The Met Open Archives: Reliquary Bust of a Female Saint (Back View); South Netherlandish; early 16th century; Link to image
  • Artist materials:
    • Acrylic paint,  acrylic matte medium, fine line pen

The Artist

Robin Rivers is an artist, photographer, and writer who creates from conversations with ancient ponds and old trees, spirits of place and old ones whose lost stories want to be told. As a mixed-media artist, Rivers works with original photography, museum archives, and storytelling to give form to the old ones who speak to her through dreams, deep listening, and walking the land in ancient places. Her practice weaves together mystical guidance and archival research, creating magical pieces that restore powerful lost connections and stories rising up once again. Robin creates all pieces at Studio Albertine in Vancouver, Canada—on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. This includes the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Before you go, check out more of my work HERE.

Finally, be sure to follow me on SUBSTACK

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