▲ Poster
On April 28, 2019, Horizontal Crossings: International Exchange Exhibition of Contemporary Weaving and Embroidery Art officially opened at Hanshan Art Museum in Suzhou. Curated by Assadour Markarov, Professor of the Fiber Art Department at the School of Sculpture and Public Art of the China Academy of Art, the exhibition involved graduate students from the Fiber Art Department. In conjunction with the exhibition, Alice Kettle, a weaving and embroidery artist from Manchester, UK, and Pauline Nijenhuis, a weaving and embroidery artist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, held lectures and shared their ideas with local artists and college students. They also conducted embroidery workshops.
▲ Alice with members
The project "Horizontal Crossings" explores how a single "thread" can connect people and how this simple element, along with the technique of stitching, can be transformed into both embroidery and fine art. The exhibition showcases the diverse and complex ways in which participating artists have worked with "thread," illustrated through two key workshops by artists specializing in contemporary embroidery, such as Alice Kettle and Pauline Nijenhuis. The exhibition also features the works of Zou Yingzi, an artist known for presenting the rich embroidery culture of Suzhou, which has a heritage spanning over 2,200 years. The participating artists expand on the theme of "one thread" and "the stitch," presenting objects, installations, and video essays within the exhibition space. These works explore the unique qualities, use, context, and history of these fundamental elements.
▲ Artist Pauline Nijenhuis’s workshop
▲ Artist Alice Kettle’s workshop
Pauline Nijenhuis (Amsterdam)
Visual artist
Graduated from Artez University of the Arts in the Netherlands in 1990
Her artworks show a quick observation of the landscape of today's modern high-tech society,
Her embroidery paintings are created on linen cloth using acrylic paint and hand embroidery (satin stitch).
Workshop "Speedy Landscape"
In this workshop, Pauline aims to offer participants an insight into her creative process. Focusing on themes of speed, time, and the city, she will guide everyone in capturing high-speed outdoor photographs as the foundation for their creations. Participants will then combine painting and embroidery techniques to interpret the images, allowing each individual to craft their own unique high-speed landscape.
▲ Pauline introduces her artworks
▲ Pauline asked students to present their favorite things and hobbies in life through painting
▲ Pauline shows the technique of using a variety of materials to create textures
▲ Collective display of creative textures
▲ Workshop members are creating experimental drafts
▲ Members' artworks
▲ Li Ying, “Conversion”, variable dimensions, acrylic, cotton thread, silk thread
▲ Peng Sisi, “Chasing”, variable dimensions, acrylic, cotton thread, silk thread
Alice Kettle (UK)
Professor of Textile Arts, School of Art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Honorary Professor, Centre for Real World Learning, University of Winchester
Fellow of the Royal Society of Designers and Craftsmen
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Honorary Member of 62 Artists Groups
Committee Member of CraftNet
Workshop "Free Machine Embroidery"
Alice Kettle's workshop is very free and relaxed, which may depend on the artist's own free and open characteristics for creation. As Alice said, "I like the effects created inadvertently, which often brings me surprises." She encourages everyone to express simply in the process of creation, which makes everyone full of infinite imagination and power, encounter unknown uncertainties at all times, and use "threads" to create their own world.
▲ Alice presents artworks of herself and her student
▲ Alice introduces her workshop
▲ Use various objects to print textures
▲ Use ink painting to collage materials
▲ Alice shows machine embroidery samples
▲ Alice explains how to collage for members
▲ Alice's instructions for using a sewing machine
▲ Alice with members
▲ Members' artworks
▲ Alice and members' collaborative artworks
On the last day of the workshop, members combined the samples they created on a large background cloth, cut and designed them, and collaged them on the screen, finally forming a complete large-scale machine repair work.
– For more details, please click the link below –
