Laurie says:

(We’re still dealing with the after effects of the website being hacked. Hopefully things will be running smoothly soon.)

I wrote a while ago that my portrait of Fumiko Nakamura was part of an exhibit of Chinese and US women artists at the Luxon Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang, China.  It’s an international project of the Women’s Caucus of the Arts.  It opens on April 15th in Shenyang.

The Luxun Academy of Arts was founded in 1938 by Communist Party of China leaders, including Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai.

The theme “Women hold up half the sky” quotes Chairman Mao Zedong’s famous statement.  The intent is to explore the role that social practice art has in changing the world.  It’s an art-based cultural exchange and exhibition between US artists and essayists juried through the WCA and women artists curated in China.

I wanted to focus in this post on the work by the Chinese artists.  It’s a beautiful collection of diverse work.  This was the work that spoke to me the most at the moment.

Liu Zhi Yin

Born After 1980 Sculpture

As the first generation born under China’s one child policy, We grew up alone, in our own mental world. Our creative works are based more on personal experiences, feelings, but we also incorporate a number of popular visual elements, symbols found in fashion or cartoon. I blend all the ingredients together and use a cartoonish visual schema to describe life, capturing the souls of my generation and emphasizing a kind of self-analysis and individual experience. My work looks pretty even though it vaguely reveals sad feelings. In a metaphorical way, I want to present the loneliness, uncertainty and dullness felt by the born after 80’s generation, behind our prosperous material life style.

Jiang Xiao Mei

Creative concepts: the Prosperous World series is made from ancient Chinese coins, using transparent fishing line to tie bronze coins together and form an image of either a chair or clothing. A chair symbolizes a position of power. Clothing symbolizes beauty and splendor. The work, being sealed in a transparent protective shield, gives an impression of grandeur and prosperity. However, the overall shape is very fragile. If each individual coin changes position, the chair and clothing can be easily destroyed. The sense of instability represents the relationship between money, power and prosperity.

Yuan Jia

The Prelude of Resurrection Sculpture

In my work, modeling and shaping wood is not the point. The mastery of the texture and characteristics of wood as a medium is not of much significance to me. The desire that leads me to realize a certain feel for a piece of work comes from my love for decorative structures that can only exist in the virtual world of wood in my memory. Through the paradox and the emotional dislocation felt in my work, I try to convey something dramatic that resembles an experience of sudden acquisition of a noble sense of purpose.

I’m delighted to be part of this exhibition and I’ll be writing about the US artists next time.