Artist bio

YiMiao Shih (Taiwan, 1985) is a London-based artist working across drawing, embroidery, wood, and metal. Her work often centres on rabbit-like figures: these figures, or recurring motifs, speak for her as Imaginary Companions(IC) and bridge the internal and external world for her. With this motif she express feelings of belonging, displacement, construction and ownership of home. Her practice is rooted in “embroidery-drawing”: an expanded drawing language formed through stitched images and the pictorial extension structures. Her work speaks to reinventing embroidery in its historical contexts.

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Shih holds an MA in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art (2015) and a BFA in Fine Art from National Taiwan Normal University (2008). YiMiao also teaches in RCA and UAL and is one of the advisors to Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London. Recent shows include: Osh Gallery London by Pentagram (2026); Somerset House with Candida Stevens Gallery (2025); Paul Smith Albemarle Gallery (2024); London Transport Museum (2019); 250th Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition (2018); CICA Museum, Korea (2018); Street Road Artists Space, USA (2017).

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Artist Statement

I make stitched images and the pictorial extension structures. My work speaks to reinventing embroidery in its historical contexts.

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Using a domestic sewing machine and hand-stitching, I produce what I describe as "embroidery-drawing": Rather than making decorative textile works, I use embroidery as a way to make drawings. Embroidery is a practice historically bound to interiors, discipline, and concerns greatly the shaping of feminine identity. I am interested in seeing what happens when I expand/reinvent its technicality and aesthetics, reference the history of Western painting languages, and how it shifts the perspectives about its traditions and positionality in the context of contemporary art.

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I’m currently working on exploring embedded stitched images with found objects or made structures. These wall or floor base objects are leading my practice towards the realm of installation. Materiality wise, I am interested in how softness operates against rigidity; and on spatial terms, how the embedded stitched image in objects activates readership.

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My work often centres on rabbit-like figures that navigate experience on my behalf, these figures function as recurring motifs and speak for me as my imaginary friends/companions. With this motif I express feelings of belonging, displacement, construction and ownership of home. Currently I am looking at exploring a sense of crisis infused into the tranquil landscape, internal journey through natural objects, as well as constructing romance via reclaiming nature as a new safe place for female adventures.