DELICATE AND PROFOUND: THE ART OF NIEN PIHUA

 

Youngsook Pak

(Emeritus Reader at SOAS' Department of Art and Archaeology)

 

Nien Pihua is a unique and exceptionally versatile artist, whose principal medium is textile, but who is not afraid to use other materials. Having begun in Taiwan as an embroidery artist, she came to London to study jewellery at the prestigious Royal College of Art and completed her Master’s degree there. She soon became a jewellery designer, keen also to revive interest in traditional embroidery, to which she brought a modern twist, creating embroidered jewels to be worn, extremely fine work requiring extraordinary digital dexterity. As with all genres of art, embroidery entails not only a mastery of materials and techniques, but also having creative ideas.

 

Nien’s textile art employs an astonishing range of techniques; patchwork, embroidery, appliqué, printed and painted, collage with cut fabrics on a diaphanous background. Each of these techniques is accomplished in itself, but her genius is in their combinations. As in the Tang dynasty, the silk threads of her embroidery are sometimes wrapped in gold or silver leaf, couched on the fabric with tiny, almost invisible stitches. Her elaborate and painstaking embroidery is often so fine and delicate that one can only marvel. Her designs and motifs too are not only drawn from the Chinese tradition of auspicious symbolic motifs such as peony and dragon: she also creates abstract geometric compositions, like a painting. Indeed, some of her works are textile paintings in sumptuous colours in evocative compositions, in the midst of which one can also make unexpected discoveries of delightful witty comments in the form of tiny motifs which require a careful and discerning observation.

 

Nien Pihua’s artistic creations have always crossed boundaries: between jewellery and embroidery, between precious metals and jade, between ancient and modern, between inner thought and outer space, between the infinitesimal and the measureless, and in her most recent work, between craft and painting. Her embroideries of the 1990s reflected the incredible Chinese archaeological discoveries of the second half of the twentieth century, when perfectly preserved textiles over two thousand years old were discovered in ancient tombs, and exquisite jades of an even earlier age provided new inspiration for shapes and colour. At London’s foremost institute of the fine arts, the Royal College of Art, she studied with Wendy Ramshaw (1939-2018), the leading jewellery designer, but she has always alloyed the gold- and silver-smithing skills she learnt there with her own self-taught mastery of embroidery and of the ancient Chinese skill of knotting with slender cords, ensuring that her own jewellery is always set off in a harmonious way with matching colours and intricate knotted forms.

 

The motifs in Nien’s work also span the range between mythology and nature, being just as likely to feature the legendary dragon and phoenix as real-life creatures such as green tree-frog, spider and kingfisher or pelican.  Traditional symbols are subtly but comprehensively or even subversively transformed, as in “Image of Spring (2013)” where the usual motif of plum blossom as the late winter harbinger of a new beginning has become a stunning peach-pink silken scarf setting fire to the bare brown branches of the tree with a burst of flame, and, just in case, a tiny fire extinguisher stands at the garden gate. The phoenix in “Sun-bearing Phoenix (2013),” an intricate multi-layered embroidery, is constructed solely out of triangular elements, while the sun above it is simply a diffuse reddish radiance on the dark ground: geometry with a touch of the supernatural versus the intangible aura of deep space.

One after another, the most recent works, combining embroidery and textile collage with elements of painting, startle and engage the imagination. In “Air Cocoon (2012)” a couple of moths, soaring high in the sky, inhabit what could be balloons, or Chinese purses tied at the neck, but held by slender kite strings to a western armchair and a Chinese stool, respectively. One of eight “fragments” (2013) is instantly recognizable as the cracked-ice pattern familiar from Chinese lattice and blue-and-white porcelain, but is labelled “A Small Park.”

 

“Transformation of the Reflection (2013)” shows an embroidered tree in fresh spring green, whose reflection changes shape and colour with insistent vertical strokes of autumnal red. “Old Dreams (2012)” a complex depiction including elements such as a kingfisher perched to dive from a tree, and two ecstatic butterfly-like creatures face to face with waving antennae, all set on a pitch-black sky above rolling dark-red clouds. In contrast, “My Jewelry Box (2013)” is imagined as a delicate and silvery spider’s web on a dark red ground: inside it, like so many memories, various creatures are trapped.

 

The two-part composition of “Soaring Birds (2014)” represents a new departure in Nien Pihua’s oeuvre, which shows no signs of moderating the pace of her invention. In it the skeletal forms of wintry trees appear as if seen from directly underneath against a sunset sky in which the birds wheel overhead, with the sun itself at the very centre, split between the two halves. The perspective adopted in this work recalls that seen on the eighth-century lacquered tray-table in the Shoso-in treasure house, Nara, Japan, on which trees are painted from all four sides, with birds flying in the small area of open sky in the middle. Ver inventive, “Ancient and Modern like a Dream (2013)” presents yet another format, that of a four-panel folding screen, with papercut florets that seem to float on the surface like sea anemones in a rock pool. Other works achieve a three-dimensional effect with triangular pieces of embroidered silk folded like origami.

 

Nien Pihua is blessed to have inherited China’s age-long artistic tradition, and to have thoroughly studied and embraced western culture as well.  Her textile works are an imaginative synthesis of tradition and modernity, combining both geometric and fluent curvilinear idioms, sculptural yet ethereal, truly inventive and simply beautiful to look at. For this reason her works of art are unique, supremely elegant and refined in the most accomplished way.

 

(From: Nien Pi-hua, Embroidering True Self (Exhibition Catalogue), Taoyuan City, Taiwan: Department of Cultural Affair, Taoyuan; Taipei: Lionart, 2016. Pp.3-6.)

 

“Image of Spring” (2013)

Acrylic on canvas, 31.5×41 cm

 

 “Sun-bearing Phoenix” (2013)

Embroidery on silk, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 30×30cm

 

“Air Cocoon” (2012)

Embroidery on organza, attached to organza, then attached to acrylic painted canvas, 100×80cm

“Fragments” (2013)

 Embroidery on organza, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 100×80cm

 

“Transformation of the Reflection” (2013)

Embroidery on acrylic painted canvas, 27×38cm

“Old Dreams” (2012)

Embroidery on wool, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 100×80cm

 

“My Jewelry Box” (2013)

Embroidery on silk, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 31×31cm

“Ancient and Modern like a Dream” (2013)

Embroidery on organza, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 84×58cm ×4pieces

 

“Soaring Birds” (2014)

Embroidery on wool, attached to acrylic painted canvas, 80×100cm ×2pieces

細膩深刻：粘碧華的藝術

撰文者：朴英淑（Youngsook Pak）

（倫敦大學亞非學院名譽敎授）

粘碧華是一位非凡獨特、多才多藝的藝術家，她的主要創作媒材是織繡，卻也不畏使用其他材質創作。她一開始在台灣從事刺繡藝術，後來前往英國倫敦學習珠寶首飾，進入極富盛名的皇家藝術學院（Royal College of Art）的碩士班深造。不久後她成為一位珠寶首飾設計師，同時也熱衷於復興傳統刺繡，將現代融入其中，創造出可穿戴的刺繡首飾，其作品極度精美，端賴其巧手才能完成。跟各類型的藝術相同，刺繡不但需要嫻熟材質與技巧，更需要有創意。

粘碧華的織繡藝術所動用的技術之廣令人驚嘆：拼縫、刺繡、嵌花、印染、彩繪，並將剪裁各種布料拼貼於薄如蟬翼的底布上。通曉每種技巧本身都一種成就，而她的天才在於能所有技巧整合起來。如同唐代，有時她的刺繡會以細微得幾乎難以辨識的針法，將裹著一層金或銀的絲線，釘繡到布料上。她複雜精巧、刻苦完成的刺繡是如此美觀細緻，往往令人歎為觀止。她的設計與圖樣，也不僅採自中國傳統的吉祥象徵圖案如牡丹或蛟龍等等，她還自創許多抽象的幾何紋案，簡直就像一幅畫作。的確，她有些作品正是織繡的畫作，色彩華麗、構圖動人，她在畫面中以小巧的圖案表達出許多令人會心一笑的聰明見解，唯有仔細用心的人才能觀察得到。

粘碧華的藝術創作總是橫跨多個領域：結合了珠寶首飾與刺繡、金銀與玉石，結合了古代與現代，發於思緒之內、形於太空之外，既重枝微末節、又能無限延展，而她最新的作品則是整合了手工藝與繪畫。她1990年代的創作對二十世紀下半中國令人讚嘆的考古發現做出了回響，當時古墓中出土了歷經兩千多年前尚保存完整的織品，年代更久遠的精美玉器的造型與色澤亦帶給世人新的靈感。當時在皇家藝術學院，倫敦頂尖的藝術機構，粘碧華師從一流的首飾設計師溫蒂．蘭肖（Wendy Ramshaw，1939-2018），然而，她總是能將她新學到的金銀工藝，結合她自學成材的刺繡與中國結技巧，使她打造的珠寶首飾無一不具備和諧的配色與精巧的結飾造型。

粘碧華作品中的圖案亦廣泛取材自神話與自然，像是傳說中的龍與鳳，或生活中能見到的樹蛙、蜘蛛、翠鳥、鵜鶘等等。她使用傳統象徵的方式幽微細膩卻十分達意，有時甚至是顛覆性的轉化。例如在她的「春之映象」（2013）中，通常象徵冬日將盡、新年伊始的李花，盛開成一縷撼動視覺的桃紅絲巾，在光禿的棕色枝幹間點燃大火，還有，為了防止意外，一具小小的滅火器就擺在花園的門口。 在「運日的鳳凰」（2013）中，精巧地多層次刺繡而成的鳳凰，完全由各式各樣的三角造形構成，其上的太陽則僅僅是昏暗的底色上一抹抹發散開來的赤色光暈：幾何紋案結合了些許超自然的元素，與深邃的太空難以捉摸的氛圍對比著。

她近期的作品持續將刺繡、織品與繪畫拼貼在一起，不斷挑動與吸引人們的想像力。在「空氣蛹」（2012）中，數隻高翔在天的飛蛾，置身於氣球狀或中國荷包狀的泡泡中，被風箏線般的細繩分別繫在一張西式扶手椅與中式的凳子上。「八破圖」（2013）立刻使人想到中國窗櫺格紋或青花瓷的冰裂紋，卻又貼著張「小公園」的標籤。

「心之映像」（2013）先刺繡出一株滿是春綠的樹，樹的水面倒影再一變為倔強筆直的短線構成的秋紅。「夢」（2012）的構圖複雜，包含了棲在枝頭欲俯衝的翠鳥，和兩隻蝴蝶似的神奇生物面對面舞動著觸鬚，背景則是漆黑的天空與翻湧的暗紅色雲朵。與此相對，「我的珠寶盒”」（2013）被想像成是一張精巧的銀色蜘蛛網，映襯著暗紅的底色，回憶則像各種被羈絆其上的小生命。

雙聯作「漂鳥集」（2014） 標示著粘碧華作品的新進展，毫不保留地表現出她的新創獲。畫面中冬季枯樹的嶙峋枝幹從四周出現，觀者彷彿從林中仰視傍晚的天空，鳥在頂上的天空盤旋，位於中央的太陽則被雙聯作一分為二。這件作品的視覺角度令人想起日本奈良正倉院珍藏的八世紀的漆器托盤桌，樹從四個角落畫出來，鳥則在枝幹間隙的天空中飛翔著。充滿新意的「古今如夢」（2013）則表現出令一種格式，由四幅畫屏構成，剪紙而成的絹花漂浮在畫面上如礁池中的海葵。其他幾件作品則運用大量裁成錐形的繡絹，如摺紙藝術般，製造出三度空間的效果。

粘碧華幸運的繼承了中國悠久的藝術傳統，又詳加學習並接納了西方文化。她的織繡作品創造性地融合了傳統與現代，她的視覺語彙既有幾何的稜角又有流暢的曲線，如雕塑般立體卻又縹緲脫俗，既是嶄新的創造又美得賞心悅目。正因如此，她的藝術作品不但獨一無二、萬分優雅，又如巨匠般精鍊。