Chinese embroidery artist recreates starry constellations with needles and silk threads

Chen Yinghua, an inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage called Suzhou embroidery, has recreated her own “universe” only with needles and silk threads, bringing new vitality to the traditional art form.

Chen Yinghua makes her embroidery works. (Photo/Zhong Chenglei)

Chen has created 26 embroidery artworks themed on dreamlike celestial bodies, including the Crab Nebula and Horsehead Nebula.

Several years ago, Chen saw some pictures of various galaxies presented by an astronomer from the Suzhou Observing Station at the Purple Mountain Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Having a thing for mysterious stars and outer space since she was a little girl, when she often listened to fairy tales about the galaxy from her grandparents during starry summer nights, Chen decided to try her hand at depicting the images in her embroidery artworks.

Chen started with the Crab Nebula, but found it very difficult to knit its vague shape using traditional stitchwork. So, she had to continue to look for a new set of stitching skills. After six months of repeated attempts and painstaking work, Chen developed her own approach to creating a miniature Crab Nebula. The artist even split an ordinary thread into 1/32 of its original width in order to accurately illustrate the color gradations of the supernova remnant.

Photo shows Chen Yinghua’s embroidery work in the image of the Crab Nebula. (Photo courtesy of Chen Yinghua)

The artist’s universe-themed embroidery artworks were awarded a prize for their ability to connect science and art at the opening ceremony of the Space Day of China held in Nanjing, capital city of east China’s Jiangsu province, on April 24 this year. Her breathtaking universe collection also became a hit at an international exhibition held several years ago.

She also plans to complete more embroidery artworks based on the star charts carved on ancient buildings and in the Dunhuang manuscripts, the latter a series of famous documents discovered in the UNESCO-listed Mogao Grottos in northwest China’s Gansu province.

Born into a family in Suzhou with a long history of practicing traditional embroidery, and with the city of Suzhou being the home of time-honored embroidery arts in Jiangsu province, Chen started to learn the exquisite art from her mother when she was only 14. To date, she has helped reproduce and restore over 100 pieces of embroidery artworks for the Palace Museum in Beijing since 2003.

Photo shows Chen Yinghua receiving an award from Shan Jixiang, former curator of the Palace Museum, at the opening ceremony of the Space Day of China held in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province, on April 24, 2021. (Photo courtesy of Chen Yinghua)

Furthermore, Chen has made great efforts to promote this traditional artform over the past years. She once served as a volunteer teacher at a special education school in Suzhou to teach embroidery to students who were deaf or suffered from hearing loss. She launched Suzhou-style embroidery training programs in countries abroad, including in Mauritius.

Chen also runs her own Suzhou-style embroidery studio in the city in the hope of attracting more young people to join the craft. The artist said she would be willing to teach people the craftsmanship behind the embroidery artform so long as they demonstrate their wish to learn the trade.