"From Rags to Wishes," Textile Works, Chieko Murasugi (2024).Fiberart International 2025 (Fi2025) features works by both established and emerging artists from eight countries, representing a wide spectrum of creativity, materials, techniques and unique perspectives. The global community that is woven together through this exhibition naturally reflects a broad international outlook. The selected works for Fi2025 were juried by three distinguished and internationally renowned artists and curators: JOJO ABOT, Louis Ho and Tamara Kostianovsky.
With over 400 entries from 30 countries, 36 artists were chosen, offering a diverse and engaging representation of contemporary fiber art. The exhibition is globally recognized as a benchmark, documenting trends and innovations in the field. Fi2025 aims to present innovative works rooted in traditional fiber materials, structures, processes and history, while also embracing art that explores unexpected connections between fiber and other creative disciplines.
Chieko Murasugi's work will be on display at Contemporary Craft in Lawrenceville:
Chieko Murasugi, an abstract painter, mixed-media, and textile artist, was born in Tokyo (1957) and immigrated to Canada with her parents and sister in 1961. She has degrees in Psychology (B.A. McGill, Ph.D. York U), specializing in Visual Perception, and in Studio Art (B.F.A. York U, M.F.A. UNCChapel Hill). In 1990, Chieko traveled to California to pursue a postdoctoral research fellowship in Visual Neuroscience at Stanford University. After completing her research, she began an art practice in San Francisco where she resided for 20 years before relocating to the NC Triangle in 2012. In the past two decades Chieko has exhibited her work nationally in galleries and museums. Her works reside in corporate collections, and in the collections of the City of Raleigh, Durham, and of Duke University. Her art practice is featured in Liza Roberts’ 2022 book, “Art of the State: Celebrating the Visual Art of North Carolina” (UNC Press). Chieko is a co-founder and co-curator of BASEMENT, an artist collective that promotes works by experimental artists with roots in the Southeast.
Works by Rosa Ng and Zelin Seah will be on display at Brew House Arts on the South Side.
Rosa Ng (she/her) is a Chinese American multidisciplinary artist and educator based in Upstate New York. Her practice is deeply rooted in process-based documentation, traditional craft, and materiality, exploring varied themes of food and community, cultural identity and belongings, and ecological stewardship. She uses materiality as an entry point for conversations, crafting tangible artifacts that encapsulate narratives and facilitate artmaking as a powerful tool for processing the world around us.
In her latest series, “Self Portraits”, Rosa rediscovers her voice as a textile artist. This series uses one machine knitting technique in a quasi-structural pattern of rows and stitches that remains open to spontaneous decisions. Each piece is inherently unique, capturing a specific moment and feeling at the time of creation. This process, akin to Sol Lewitt’s instruction sets and the Fluxus movement, is meditative and experimental, reflecting her creative process that intersects between having structure yet organic, repetitive but yet one of a kind. These complex, dimensional, and tactile portraits articulate Rosa’s ongoing exploration of identity and creative process, translating intimate experiences into broader cultural narratives.
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Zelin Seah received a BFA from Birmingham City University. Seah’s work currently focuses on re-examining the concept of maps, questioning land ownership and usage rights. By referencing official topographic maps and palm oil empty fruit bunch fibers, he explores the intricate relationship between people and the land, emphasizing how humanity defines and interacts with nature—treating it as a landscape, a habitat, and a resource.
Seah’s works are part of public and private collections, including those at the Singapore Art Museum, National Art Gallery Malaysia, Ilham Gallery and Birmingham City University. He has exhibited extensively on an international scale, with shows at The National Art Center Japan, Saatchi Gallery in the United Kingdom, and Art SG Singapore. Seah has participated in several prestigious residency programs, such as the AIR Frankfurt by basis Frankfurt e.V. and SAGER Residency Manila, Jogjakarta, Kuala Lumpur by HOM Art Trans. His accolades include the Jury’s selection of recommended works at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival and Top Winner of the 2022 UOB Painting of the Year Malaysia. In 2024, he was also awarded a residency at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum and was a finalist for the Sovereign Asian Art Prize.
Fiberart International 2025 kicks off with a free Opening Reception on Friday, June 20th, from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. There are several free tours and events throughout the exhibit's run as well. Contemporary Craft is located at 5645 Butler St. in Lawrenceville (map), and Brew House Arts is located at 711 S. 21st St. in the South Side (map).
