“FOCAL LENGTH”: This hand embroidery on linen piece by Daniel Kornrumpf is featured in “Intimate Lines: Drawing with Thread,” which runs from September 17 to January 7 at the Hunterdon Art Museum. An opening reception is on Sunday, September 24, from 2 to 4 p.m.

In “Intimate Lines: Drawing with Thread,” 16 artists wield a needle like a pen to compose intensely personal stories and record intimate histories.

In this Hunterdon Art Museum exhibition, which opens September 17, artists deal with relationships, gender, and identity; their works show exquisite textured drawings that expand upon textile traditions to make compelling contemporary statements.

“Stitching is an intimate physical act, closely connected to the body,” said Carol Eckert, curator of the exhibition. “An often solitary process, it is at once time-intensive, relentless, and contemplative. The artists in this exhibition create works that are inextricable from the process itself — intensely personal figurative images drawn with tangible stitched lines.”

Using thread as both a tactile and symbolic medium, these artists approach the traditionally painstaking process of embroidery with a modern sensibility. Building upon historic textile processes and working within the tradition of figurative imagery, they create dialogues between old and new — dialogues intensified by the use of found embroideries, vintage postcards, old photographs, and paper maps.

Viewers will also discover everything from the history of textiles and traditional toile patterns to modern pop culture references to comic book heroes and selfies.

The opening reception for “Intimate Lines: Drawing with Threads” is on Sunday, September 24 from 2 to 4 p.m. The exhibit runs until Jan. 7, 2018.

The museum is at 7 Lower Center Street in Clinton.

For more information, visit the website at www.hunterdonartmuseum.org or call (908) 735-8415.

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