Hunan embroidery work of ‘24 Solar Terms’
2022-10-24
Wu Jianmei, a master of Chinese arts and crafts, is leading her team to embroider the Hunan embroidery work of “24 Solar Terms” these days, which is ordered by the team of Zhang Yimou, a renowned Chinese director.
Seeking breakthroughs in Hunan embroidery
Over the years, the works of Wu Jianmei have attracted wide attention and won 16 national gold awards successively. Her representative masterpieces of “Human and Nature”, “The Lions” and “August” have been awarded with the 8th, 10th and 11th China Folk Art Shanhua Awards respectively, which is China’s highest folk art honor. Some of her works have also been housed in institutes like the Palace Museum and National Museum of China.
Wu Jianmei has been dedicating herself to Hunan embroidery and seeking breakthroughs.
The award ceremony of the 15th China Folk Art Shanhua Awards was held on the evening of September 15, 2022. Wu Jianmei’s Hunan embroidery work of “Flock of Chickens” was honored with Shanhua Award, the fourth time that Wu Jianmei has won the award after an interval of 7 years.
“Flock of Chickens” implies the thriving rural revitalization in the new era. Gaining inspiration from nature and life, Wu Jianmei innovatively and ingeniously creates 12 hues with silk embroidery threads of hundreds of color levels. The skillful stitches contribute to the vivid embroidery masterpiece, which represents a new high of embroidery art.
With great enthusiasm, Wu Jianmei is committed to the creation of “24 Solar Terms”, which includes various stitches and extremely complex procedures for the optimal effect in terms of color levels, hues and expressiveness. It is expected to be completed before the end of this year.
Presenting changes of times
Innovation is what the vitality of art works lies in. Over the years, Wu Jianmei has inherited ancient embroidery craftmanship while seeking breakthroughs innovatively, so as to endow Hunan embroidery with new vitality. The Hunan embroidery work of “Square Vessel (Fang Zun) with Four Rams”, a renowned bronze ware dating back 3,000 years, is an important innovative practice of Wu Jianmei.
In order to present the hues and textures of the bronze ware with needles and threads, Wu Jianmei has made great efforts in the exploration and innovation of craftmanship. During the creation, she adopted 8 hues, hundreds of color levels and various stitches. Due to difficulties like short stitches, thin silk threads and rich colors, it took Wu Jianmei nearly three years to complete the work with 90 centimeters in length and 70 centimeters in width. The vivid “Square Vessel (Fang Zun) with Four Rams” wowed visitors when it was exhibited and won the “Best Cultural Creativity Award” in Shanghai World Expo. Since then, Wu Jianmei has started the creation of Hunan embroidery of ancient bronze ware.
Wu Jianmei believes Hunan embroidery, as intangible cultural heritage, must embrace the times and shoulder the responsibility of displaying the dramatic changes of the times, and that is exactly what her works does. The “Spring in Shibadong Village” created by her team won the Hunan Poverty Alleviation Literature and Art Creation Excellence Award and the “Welcome to the Winter Olympics” was exhibited in the themed exhibition of Beijing Winter Olympics Spirit. Her Hunan embroidery works were also showcased in Chow Yun-fat’s movie press conference of “Project Gutenberg”. Hunan embroidery is not absent in the major themed creation of the times, which makes Wu Jianmei feel proud.
