Edmar Luiz Batista is a master in the art of embroidery and bobby lacing. He has mastered more than 500 different techniques involved in creating works inspired by nineteenth-century Portuguese, Italian and French patterns.  He follows the embroidery tradition of colonial Minas Gerais which is characterized by a combination of different stitches in a single work.

Since pre-historic times, textiles and their decorative patterns have became symbols that distinguish regions, social classes and the place of origin.  In Egypt, linen became the primary material used in religious rituals due to its purity and whiteness, establishing a tradition to present times.  Church altars are covered with linen cloth richly decorated with embroidery and lace symbolizing purity and chastity.

The most lavishly embroidered pieces, called opus anglicum, appear in the eight century and, five centuries later, gold and silver threads create coat-of-arms.  The Latin American taste for luxurious textiles had its origin in the Iberian Peninsula. The Portuguese and Spanish textiles were influenced by the Saracen and Moor invaders.  It is during the Renaissance and Baroque eras that the embroidered textiles reached their artistic and technical apogees.  However, the nineteenth-century industrial revolution, affected the quality and value of objects produced by manual labor. 

Biography:  Edmar Luiz Batista started his apprenticeship in the art of embroidery and lace making as a young child with octogenarian women of São João del-Rei who passed their legacy to him.  Later on, as a Benedictine trappist monk, Edmar perfected his art in the Monastery of Santa Maria Serra Clara in Minas Gerais and, in Seville, he learned embroidery with gold and silver threads.   His works decorate altars of more than a hundred churches all over Brazil.