YiMiao Shih - "Search Light and Shadow" 2023
YiMiao Shih
thread, vintage thread, fabric, primed linen
6.5 cm x 10 cm x 0.5 cm
also available, Landscape BAGT Editions 2
YiMiao Shih is a Taiwanese-born, London-based interdisciplinary artist associated with Blackhorse Lane Studios in Walthamstow, East London, where she is listed among the resident artists at the Barbican Arts Group Trust (BAGT) studios.
Born in Taiwan in 1985, Shih studied BFA in Fine Art at National Taiwan Normal University
amd MA in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art, London.
Her practice combines embroidery and drawing with illustration , video and installation.
Shih is especially known for what she calls “embroidery-drawing” — an innovative process using domestic sewing machines and hand stitching to mimic the movement and gesture of hand-drawn lines. From a distance, her stitched works can resemble paintings or ink drawings, but they are built from densely layered threads and sewn marks. Identity and belonging together with politics and nationalism are major themes running through her work.
One of her best-known projects was Rabbrexit Means Rabbrexit (2019), a solo exhibition and six-month residency at the former House of Illustration in King’s Cross, London. The exhibition used rabbit characters and embroidered imagery to satirise Brexit politics, nationalism and social division in Britain.
Shih has been exhibited at major venues including; the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition, Saatchi Gallery, Somerset House, Paul Smith Albemarle Street and CICA Museum, Korea. She is represented by Candida Stevens Gallery.