Feiyue Zhang, Jiayin Xu, and Shu Yang

November 1st - 21st

Curated by Lu Xu and Feiyue Zhang


Opening
November 4th 6pm - 9pm

Lecture by James Anderson 
Simplicity, Beauty and Xin (Heart/Mind): Interconnected Elements in Chinese Culture and Art
November 9th 6pm

The three Chinese artists are from Southwest China, whose lives vividly mirror the transformation of Chinese females’ fates from the 50s to contemporary time. 

It’s a generation of women who grew up with the complex of haunting horrors of foot binding, as well as the open opportunities of education and working. They maneuver through the personas as wives, mothers, daughters, intellectuals, teachers, and artists, sharing the sense of social success equally as men do. Their independence and professional practices have allowed them to revive aspirations for self-development like never before. This selection of watercolor paintings reveal their celebration of progressive Chinese female lives and new struggles of their own time.

Feiyue Zhang

Zhang is an Associate Professor of Painting at Art Department, Guizhou Minority University, Guiyang, China. She is a single mother responsible for two daughters and two elders. Although trivialities prevail her life, they are exactly the source of her inspirations for painting and dancing. Her love for belly dancing has been illustrated in a series of watercolor painting: bold and free-flowing, they are the celebration of vibrant emotions and imaginations.  She, therefore, manifests everyday mundane with consistent engagement with painting and dancing. In this process, she discovers women with similar life experiences. As an art teacher and a friend, she encouraged them to complete themselves through painting. Within two years, these two other women have become artists.

Jiayin Xu

Xu is an Associate Professor at International Education Department, Guizhou Minority University, Guiyang, China. She is also a Teacher of TCSL (Teaching Chinese as a Second Language). The opportunity of regularly engaging with people from various cultural background has immersed her within a kaleidoscope of conflicts and similarities of different cultures. She loves the gift from the nature in her home country, and she often travels with her students from different countries. The landscape speaks to her wholeheartedly and deeply. She is in her fifties, but Zhang encouraged her to paint. Although she is new, the landscapes relive through her paint brushes.

Shu Yang

Yang is a Professor of Journalism Studies at Guizhou Minority University, and a Researcher at Sichuan Institute of Social Studies. She has described painting as her second life after she retired. The act of painting itself invigorates her spirit. Everyday minutes are unique and invaluable in her eyes – their gleam triumph over the big, busy world. The beauty of the unnoticeable grass and flowerer exemplify the vastness. She has witnessed the struggles from thousands in her social research, and she has found meaning in the present moment, as trivial as a grass, yet as enormous as the world.     

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James Anderson