In 2023 Kathryn Tsui embarked on a new body of work catalysed by research into textiles, bead works and ceramics from across Asia and Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa. A sample of the resulting works feature here. 

cloud ribbon draws together visual references and ways of working within these art forms, together with references to Tsui’s own cultural heritage and craft practice.

With origins in imported blue-and-white porcelain from Qing dynasty China, the seminal Willow Pattern came into fashion in eighteenth-century England, signifying both cross-cultural adaptation and a fraught relationship to trade and appropriation. For cloud ribbon, the pattern has been reinterpreted by Tsui into beaded compositions that pay homage to a generation of Aotearoa Chinese creatives – Guy Ngan, Ron Sang and Wailin Elliott. Tsui has captured the homes and studios associated with these practitioners in delicate weavings, a tribute to the connection between domestic and artistic spaces.

Alongside beaded compositions, a new series of woven wall-hangings were important developments of Tsui’s research. The traditional European weaving sampler combined with Chinese numerology and geometric elements seen on Chinese dragon robes held in the collections of Te Papa Tongarewa and Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum have informed both the colour palette and composition of the weaving series.

Across this body of work, Tsui tells a story of patterning that reflects on intersections of Asian and European cultural histories. Celebrating labour-intensive making practices traditionally completed by women, and the domestic space as a site of creative production, Tsui presents a layered consideration of her own practice under the influence of her cultural identity.

Throughout Tsui’s practice, the motivation to reinsert and reclaim Chinese identities into Aotearoa’s colonial craft history is evident. cloud ribbon continues her study of the ubiquitous influence of Chinese material culture in craft practices, ensuring the source materials and their makers are not forgotten.

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Kathryn Tsui is a textile-based artist who works primarily in loom weaving and beading and currently lives in Tairua in Te Tara-o-te-Ika-a-Māui Coromandel Peninsula. An ongoing thread in her practice is a focus on mass-produced objects and common patterns where Asian material culture has intersected with other traditions and influences. The result is a dialogue between notions of value and embedded sociocultural hierarchies.

Tsui’s work is held in the public art collections of The Dowse Art Museum, The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato and Tūhura Otago Museum. She also works as an arts programmer and was one of the organisers of the first Chinese New Zealand Artists Hui in 2013. Tsui holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau (2007).