Regardless of mentions by Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgio Vasari and others of this legend, their emphasis had been the man's shadow casting on a wall. It was only in the mid-to-late twentieth century when Linda Nochlin pointed out the mythological romance of “Cupid guiding the woman’s hand”¹ being a later addition of romantic component had she become an integral part of the narrative.

The ins and outs of this story speak to the fate of many women whose place in art history are recognized much later in their practice if not posthumously. From Artemesia Gentileschi during the Renaissance to Nineth Street painters like Lee Krasner and Elaine de Kooning at the height of American Abstract Expressionist period, women artists’ rise to prominence has been filled into a narrative associated with men, and their recognition and notoriety always unmatched their male counterparts.

The fact that “There has there been no great woman artists, but their names have not made it into the history of art soon enough” is also true in the Chinese context. Guan Daosheng of the Yuan dynasty and Ma Shouzhen and Xue Susu in the Ming dynasty were not nearly as well recognized as Zhao Mengfu, Dong Qichang, Shen Zhou, or Tang Yin. In his book Women’s Space in Chinese Painting, Wu Hung claimed that the rise of gender studies in Western scholarship has inspired new trends in the history of Chinese painting, “incurring interests in the depiction of women while learning about the women painters themselves.”¹ Although most of the examples of women artists’ paintings he cites throughout the book are by male painters, if one were to search those works of art and discovers Marsha Weidner’s Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting provides a critical and in-depth reference.

The purpose of revisiting these art historical incidents, as distant as they may seem, is to show that the woman artists once resided in “secluded, hidden, and forgotten private quarter” would eventually surface and be rectified over time, and existing art historical narratives have little to do with the value of their practices. By the end of the 1960s, the second wave of feminist movement in the West, ushered the art world into engaging more diverse art media. Conceptual art, performance art, and video art quickly became woman artist’s preferred choice for self-expression, which were not only considered more straightforward in conveying physical and instinctual messages to their audience, but also made visceral impact on issues concerning their experience and gender equality. In contrast, the medium of painting seemed anti-avant-garde and retrograde, even conceived as the antithesis to the those working on the feminist art movement frontline. It was especially at odds with the goals of feminist artists until the 1980s until a clear position was developed.

It is apparent that in the Western feminist movement, the body, as an individual’s primary field for perceiving external information, processing them, and internalizing it before reacting to them, has become a medium of art practice for many woman artists. Today’s discourse about the body extends to incorporate in many fields of knowledge and continue to renew and pushing the envelop of being a site of experience. Among art practices in the East and West, both the body and the painted medium never left the stage. As much as the painted medium being antithesis of the avant-garde, as a site of mediation, perhaps it deserves our renewed attention. Hence, this text briefly explores evolving relationship between the presence of the body and this “conservative” medium among practices of contemporary Chinese woman painters, on issues concerning the representation of the body, perception and depiction of self-image, identity and desires, the body in action, and the translation of their inner experiences with external connections.

As early as the Republican era, in the 1920s, women were participating in various social movements. In 1921, The Chinese Women’s Federation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) published a “Declaration on Reform” in New Yourth, which encouraged women to attend school and receive the same education as men¹. It set precedents for modern women, and woman artists to study, grow, and take part in China’s liberation and its art history in the making. In the same year, Institut Franco-Chinois de Lyon, France, admitted the first group of international students from China. The seed of using the body as a direct means of representation sprouted from artists such as Pan Yuliang, Cai Weilian, Fang Junbi and other women artists at time who studied art in Europe. Among them, Pan Yuliang, a driving force behind the early Western painting movement in China, applied a unique feminine color sensitivity in her paintings that recalls the Fauvist, and earning the name of “the first impressionist painter”² for her spirited and unrestrained brushwork and rich and elegant colors. In Pan Yuliang’s paintings, female nudity was a lasting archetype throughout her oeuvre, whether depicting her own image and other women, the artist has filtered her representation of the female body through a lens of self-pity and self-love. Pan’s gaze and observation allowed her to construct an identity while pointing to actual inner feelings and ideas.

Unlike Feminists Movements in the West, in its historical iterations, had been compelled by specific ideological pursuit. They were organized in a bottom-up fashion, whereas “Women’s liberation” movement in China had undergone were launched by top leadership of the party, and its many rounds of social reforms were aimed at erasing gender differences, that arguably complicated the proposition of women’s liberation even more. As female curator Liao Wen puts it, “Western feminist liberation movements have not been applicable in China lies in the very notion of ‘women’s liberation’, which is neither organized by women nor for women. The fact that it was led by men and had the fundamental aim of strengthening the power of political struggle determined its revolutionary utilitarian nature from the very beginning.”¹ To fulfill such ideological agenda—from the liberation war to the eve of the economic reform—the image of woman in works of art often have been depicted as tall and robust, exhibiting courage, positive mental outlook, who are not any different from that of men. Such trop of representation did not change until the economic reforms and opening up policies were set in motion, when an influx of foreign cultures flooded into the country, a new direction of rediscovering the artist’s personal position as an individual in the society began to blossom.

As one of the first new generation of Chinese contemporary artists, Yu Hong, a graduate of the Central Academy of Art in the late 1980s, like many of her peer and predecessors, had received thorough training in figural realism. In 2000, the artist launched a series of painting under the title, “Witness to Growth”, which “adopted an approach of using both textual and visual depictions to activate our memories, bringing us into the visual connection between the fragments of contemporary China’s history that she has recreated and her personal life.”¹ In more recent years, Yu Hong has not explored the possibilities of integrating technology into her painting practice, but began to engage in social research. She visited women working in various professions, and portrayed their state of being in singular or grand scale narratives. In these often surreal-looking pictures, she continues map out all stages of life and the relationship between the individual and the rapid social changes taking place in China through a female perspective.

Duan Jianyu, a native of Henan Province had studied at the Guangzhou Art Academy in the early 1990s, when China’s economic reforms were in full throttle in the coastal city. Such disparate life experience ultimate had lasting impact in her painting practice. In her earlier series Sister, women’s migration from China’s interior to more economically developed areas are made apparent by uncanny scenarios and representations of their identities. For instance, flight attendants in voluptuous figures arriving in the countryside. Sharp Sharp Smart elaborate hairdo further banters with the conventional notion of feminine beauty. In some cases, we discover figures in the artist’s image, likely as an incident of self-banter. Just as Duan places equal value in still life, animals, and figures, her surreal and humorous approach allow her to better present the position of “life is a mixture of unknown substances”, which, in turn, seem more quotidian and logical. Duan would not intentionally sublime the bodies in her paintings, instead she prefers to place them in surreal situations of the everyday.

Liang Shuni, who moved away from her native Guizhou Province, had once lived in a multi-ethnic environment. Her upbringing provided her a compelling experience in which modernity gradually sipped between the crevasse of traditional life to its present manifestation. At the beginning of her painting practice, Liang was interested in depicting her birth while adding mythical narratives into the picture. Self-exploration of the body and what it means to be a person have been ongoing subjects in her works on canvas, while such questions in recent years expand to portraying her family, friends and community. As an artist born in late the 1980s, the one-child policy, the economic reforms and the advent of the technological era have had tremendous impact on her quest to learn about the body and gender. Regardless of messy information cacoons and unique conditions of living in China, the artist’s search for a sense of self, and the social context in which she carries out her practice are also shifting in comparison to that of her predecessor.

The generation who are born in the 1980s—other than being the single-child growing up during the economic reforms—benefited from the popularization of the television and imports of foreign culture, especially Japanese and Euro-American cartoons and animes. The visual influence from pop culture on artists practices had emerged as early as the early 2000. Many artists at the time directly appropriated familiar cartoon icons. Shang Liang’s use of such cultural trait is pictorial per se. Her “Muscular figures” series depict effeminate figures with over-built muscles. These intentionally shaped figures speak to the artist’s view of alienating traits of the human race today. While artist Geng Yini’s depiction of strength tends to adopt a more realistic approach, who once confessed in an artist statement about her fascination with power. It’s not surprising to discover unsophisticated, tough, and menacing figures such as bears, men with long chest hair, Hercules, wrestlers, to seemingly sluggish, funny ducks and elk. In her view, blunt force is a kind of strength.

Yet the representation of power used to channel through men. From a woman artist’s perspective, such power and its invisible forces may be comical at time. Wang Xiaoqu’s depiction of middle-aged officials, who are often men, often have ambiguous faces and distorting their bodies. Not aimed at portraying a specific character, but highlighting a certain characteristic of the group, in Galloping Horses for example, a group of mafia-like men walk from the sunset, their posture and scruffy figure remind one of the famous Chinese ink painter Xu Beihong’s Five Galloping Horses. Their blurred faces are done dramatically different from the relaxed atmosphere of her previous works Paradise, as Wang evokes a sense of familiarity to portray a certain group of people, she also unveils the fragility of their power through humor.

“In contemporary art practices, the body and sexuality are lasting subjects. Especially for our generation, our view on gender and sexuality is drastically changing as women’s consciousness is awakening. Being in the midst of this transformation and as a woman artist, I want to offer a feminine gaze that would show a more diverse and richer world of desires, and deliver positive meaning to aesthetic equality and freedom.” Tao Siqi’s view on the body, gender and sexuality speak for the majority of her generation, who are now facing issues of desire, sexuality and equality.

While tongue, hands, skin, lips and other parts of the body that evoke physical experience are sketched out in Tao Siqi’s works on canvas, her application of tender colors and soft tones delicately depict the eroticism that emerges from the juxtaposition of bodily sensations of danger, excitement, and pain, and to portray the fleeting intimacy or longing for desire. Xinyi Cheng’s focus on intimacy is less physical in comparison. Instead she’s keen on capturing the peaceful and melancholic sensibilities. She often paints her friends and acquaintances from photographs she’s taken. With slightly distorted forms and and sensual colors, the bodies in those intimate relationships always evoke narratives beyond our immediate perception, as if they are suspended in an undefined space.

In recent years, Chinese female artists began to undertake large-scale works on canvas without literally representing the body, yet, their physical participation through the body are made apparent in their work. For example, Guo Fengyi, an auto-didact, perceived painting practice as a type of ritual, one that allows her to channel her physical energy. A practitioner of Qigong for physical self-healing, the energy she felt flowing in her body is then translated on paper, projecting “illusions” only perceptible to the artist. With total concentration, all in one go, Guo Fengyi externalize her knowledge of the body into lines she drew on paper. And, as her practice became more refined and sophisticated, her depiction of the self becomes more and more elevated.

To offer immersive experience of works on canvas, Zhou Li often worked on a few meters in width and length size canvas. She often has to stand on top of the picture, waving and dragging around a mop-like brush so the colors would gently stain the canvas. With many years of calligraphy practice and her study of classic Chinese painting, Zhou Li tries to translate her experiences of painting and writing on paper onto large dimensional canvas, where the artist’s brushwork involves various scales of movements and motions. Still, her straightforward and dynamic lines create a sense of depth and space which gradually build a painterly language of her own.

Ju Ting’s physical intervention is even more direct. In 2021 she only featured one work Knock, Knock! Knock! in her solo exhibition “Winter is Coming”, which covered an entire wall of the gallery space. For which she spent eight months to produce nearly 300 sheets of acrylic paint are skin-like. Each laid on wooden boards and left to dry, and transformed their physical properties with varying natural conditions. At the opening, she raised a hammer and smashed the 16-meter-long work one by one, and the eruption of color fragments exploded their accumulated power. The artist’s powerful expression of resistance executed in the most intuitive fashion projects reflections on the state of existence, social status and the female identity of women.

From women’s awakening almost a century ago to diverse self-expressions in the present, woman artists today are fully engaged in pushing conventional boundaries. Whether they would be deemed “great” or not seems less important in today’s context, as the notion of “greatness” itself is a form of reinforcing neoliberal values of success. And before redeeming their success, it seems more critical to have their names and stories written into art history. Their awakening often began with the realization in the uniqueness of their bodies, hence that’s where their artistic practice begin, with their bodies. Whether through figurative representation, expressions of its inner workings, translating or undermining physical power and strength, or conveying their positions through actions, their expressions are worthy of the same discourse and attention as paid to their male contemporaries. Their experiences and issues of concern are as valid as any other, and their work approach and material chosen for their expressions offer the same cultural values and significance. The woman artists who are brave enough to confront their dilemma in history, the present and status quo, are also the ones courageous enough to push forward in their artistic practices, taking the necessary risks, and to jump into the unknown. They are the ones worthy of celebration. (Translated by Fiona He)