Silk thread on silk gauze, various stitch styles, split stitches, acupuncture stitches Rotating standing screen with pierced silk Chuo Sha border.

Based on a gelatin-silver print from the portfolio: Winters, 1970-1980; Peak Above a Cloud, 1973

Image size: 21 1/4 x 17 3/8 inches; Framed: 29 15/16 x 22 7/8 inches

Designed as a 2-sided table screen that can be rotated in its stand for viewing, this black and white embroidery features stitching with strands of silk threads and a unique Chuo Sha border on a transparent white synthetic matrix. The foreground pine trees have been sewn with full silk thread often using the “netting” stitch to enhance their dimensional, foreground presence. The mountains rising from the clouds in the background have been sewn with strands of silk threads using 1/24 strands and “bleeding” into 1/48 strands in the most subtle and nuanced parts of the image. The “Chou Sha” border is based on an illustration of the phoenix head originally used in illustrations from the western Han dynasty, 2100 years ago. It is a symbol of happiness and such an ancient symbol here used with such a modern form of embroidery implies “perfectly new beauty in art”. The phoenix is then echoed in the carving of the stand frame.