Jacqueline Qiu

January 13, 2026

Jacqueline Qiu (b. 1999, Montclair, NJ) is an artist and researcher based in New York. Jacqueline received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Her first solo exhibition is opening at CHART, New York, NY. She has completed the Studio Residency with The Here and There Collective in New York and the Ós Residency with the Icelandic Textile Center in Blönduós. Her work has been exhibited with Hesse Flatow, New York, NY; Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; BravinLee, New York, NY; Latitude Gallery, New York, NY; HARPER’s, New York, NY; Underdonk Gallery, New York, NY; Woods-Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI; and Gelman Gallery, Providence, RI. She has completed workshops at Tianzifang, New York Academy of Art, Anderson Ranch, and Huang Lan-Ye’s Kesi Studio.

Can you introduce yourself and your practice?

I am an artist and researcher who investigates art and craft histories to make artwork reflecting on contemporary existence. My process adopts a first-person narrative perspective, prioritizing evidence of the hand from the process. I make artwork to give myself time and a playground to explore dialogues between creative histories and everyday encounters, to share with other people, and offer them room for pondering.

What made you decide to pursue textiles as a part of your practice?

I was interested in textiles’ relationship to the body and environment, both in terms of how they are created and how they are used. Textiles follow us throughout our lives; they are our first form of shelter outside the womb. They protect and enliven the surfaces of our home and adorn our bodies while sheltering us from the elements and visibility. There is so much life and death expressed in textiles.

I learned about Kesi about three years into my journey with fiber mediums. I loved how intermedial and playful the slit tapestry weaving technique was, often mimicking ink painting, calligraphy, embroidery, and woodblock prints. I have to thank the RISD Museum for giving me a chance to see these artifacts up close. One of my favorites was this butterfly and chrysanthemum altar cloth.

There is a lightness and levity to the physical textile works – literally, light goes through, and wind moves the pieces. Can you speak to the balance that you’re trying to achieve in terms of weight in the works?

There’s visual weight and physical weight, and then permeability. They are all intertwined. I consider how the eye tracks the composition, but also how the body encircles the piece to understand its structure, textures, transparencies, and negative space. The negative space suggests potential for passing through the piece, which bridges the viewer’s body and the broader physical setting.

The negative space also references time. I started exploring negative space in weaving after close examination of Kesi artifacts, where I could see the widened slits in the fabric’s surface due to wear and tear over time. This small detail of change was so inspiring to me. The finesse and the delicacy of Kesi’s silk materiality likely influenced me. Even though I use all different types of natural and synthetic fibers, I have a very specific reasoning when selecting each thread. If I use a loud or heavy yarn, it reduces the sense of airiness and lightness, or that feeling of things passing through. So all the yarn choices are very considered.

Open space is also important in terms of resting space or liubai 留白 “leaving blankness”, to give an opening for the viewer’s own thoughts. Each work mulls over a wide range of emotions as they come and go over the course of weaving. I think my practice transmutes the weight of feeling to something light and malleable. Perhaps for myself, or perhaps as a gift to viewers. I wonder how people actually feel while encountering the work, though.

There is something exceptionally human about your practice, that fragility and the relationship to the body. Can you tell us a bit more about how you’re thinking about that relationship?

I consider how to engage with mutability through bodily and elemental experience. I’ve always felt a pull towards the mundane and quietly sublime moments. But yet, my gravitation towards hands-on craft combined with an appreciation for detail created a great deal of physical tension in my body. That strain has an almost inverse relationship with the vitality and freedom of each tapestry piece I created. It’s made me think about how much giving and selflessness it takes to make something that is free.

When I first began learning about textile history and the intersection between artisanship and industry, I was struck by how disregard for labor and life formed such heavy realities and consequences. The body is how we feel the gravity of pain, and the lightness of being.

The preciousness of the work is also an offering to the viewer. How scared or respectful are you in the presence of something that appears fragile? How comfortable are you interacting with something that is destructible, as most everything is?

What has been the source of inspiration for your works? And how does that permeate across different aspects of your practice?

My inspiration is filtered from material I read, research, observe, and absorb in daily life. The artmaking process is grounded in my relationship with the medium. Over time, a material’s propensity to convey concepts emerges. My relationship to a craft technique grows alongside scattered influences and research that ultimately converges within a particular art piece and time.

The Chinese garden has remained a guiding framework for several years. Its design features a garden enclosed by walls, creating a space for privacy, intimacy, and interiority…yet the garden was also a crucial site for artistic exchange and socialization. The architectural structure is permeated by nature, including that of the interior garden and that of the outside world. There are many garden design principles, but some include jiejing 借景 “borrowed scenery”, framed views, asymmetry, winding pathways, changing views, and more. I see many ways Chinese garden design principles and philosophy echo through my installations, tapestries, performance, and painting.

Your approach towards weaving is quite unique, and it often changes depending on the piece you’re working on. Can you tell us about your process?

I am very enamored with the possibility of line-in weaving. I prioritize the unique agency and path of each thread, which is what makes my weavings unconventional. Weaving is traditionally based on repetition. I barely use that at all; to me, each line is exploratory. How much control I have over the line is based on the type of weaving loom I am using. On a floor loom, where you see a relatively narrow segment of the work at a time (one cannot see the full piece at once), the intent happens on a very molecular scale. In the wall piece done at The Here and There Co. (based on the simplest frame loom), it was the first time I could see the intended woven surface’s dimensions all at once. It was also the first time I had the liberty to stray from the perfectly parallel and vertical warp structure. So the line takes on a sweeping and gestural quality because the line can track the entire expanse of the piece, in any direction it chooses. As long as I follow the interlacing logic of weaving, the most chaotic pathways of thread will still hold together—there just needs to be mutual alternating exchange.

All these woven structures are very metaphorical to me. How do we navigate the perceived constraints of a system or normative pressures? How do we form connections and create new ways they can exist?

Jacqueline Qiu

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