Shi Jun

Raccoons, Chinese Silk Embroidery Painting

2010

Shi Jun, born in 1958 by Dongting Lake in Hunan, grew up under strict artistic training. In 1998 he left his position as deputy director of the Hunan Xiang Embroidery Research Institute to devote himself fully to gongbi bird-and-flower painting and to observing the natural world.

More than twenty years ago he began an ambitious collaboration with Yu-Ling Hsieh of Taiwan’s Liang Yi Culture, creating a new art form known as Hua Embroidery. This process starts with painting directly on pure silk cloth, a surface that is beautiful yet difficult because colors easily bleed. After the painting is complete, teams of embroiderers build layers of ultra-fine silk threads dyed with natural mineral pigments. For their first series, two hundred master embroiderers were chosen from more than eight hundred and worked in three daily shifts using natural light. Over five years they produced more than forty large works featuring animals.

Unlike traditional embroidered paintings that often try to recreate a historical painting, Hua Embroidery is a true dialogue between painting and needlework. Brushwork and silk combine so that color, light, and even the sense of moving air seem alive. Shi Jun’s art has received major honors in China and abroad, including First Prize at the National Gongbi Painting Exhibition and the Silver Medal at the 11th National Art Exhibition, where his work was collected by the National Art Museum of China. Through Hua Embroidery he has opened new ground for contemporary gongbi painting and for the ancient craft of Chinese silk embroidery.