The Double-Sided Art: Chinese Silk Shading in the Su Embroidery Tradition with Joni Zhou

Joni Zhou (Zhou Xueqing) was born in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, China, in 1972, and learned embroidery from childhood under the guidance of her mother and grandmother, both accomplished embroidery artists. She completed her first independent work at the age of ten and her first large-scale composition, Flowers of Spring, during her university years (1993–1995).Her practice encompasses both Suzhou and Cantonese embroidery, and she has developed original stitch techniques — including the snowflake stitch (xue hua zhen) — that extend the classical vocabulary of both traditions. She works in silk thread split to as fine as one-sixteenth of astrand, and has completed large-scale works requiring up to eight months of continuous work.A four-time recipient of the gold medal in the Chinese Hundred Flowers Craft award, she has exhibited in East Asia, Canada, and the UK, and has embroidered multiple costumes for China's first lady. In her role as an art college professor, Joni has trained over two thousand embroidery students, encouraging each to work with empathy towards their craft.Her work has been presented in more than ninety exhibitions worldwide, including over thirty solo shows — among them her debut at the Guangdong Zhongshan Academy of Calligraphy and Painting (2006), STITCHES: Suzhou Fast Forward in Toronto (2011), and The Past and Present of Su Embroidery in London (2019). In October 2025, she delivered a lecture at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace. She is also a cofounder of Royal Chou, a heritage craft brand that bridges Chinese Su embroidery with UK institutional partnerships.Since 2006, Joni has run her own studio in China, where shehas dedicated two decades to teaching embroidery. Her approach combines rigorous technical instruction with attention to the cultural and conceptual contexts of the work.She has taught students of all levels, from children encountering embroidery for the first time to practising artists seeking to develop advanced technique.She is the embroiderer of Self-Portrait (2025), a collaborative silk embroidery work created with artist Rachel Liang (her daughter), invited to exhibit in the forthcoming Fragile Threads exhibition at Bankside Gallery,London (February–March 2027), an RSN-led programme focused on climate change and species loss.