Will China become the international center for contemporary art? Young female Chinese artists that are redefining the notions that prompted artistic movements such as Abstraction certainly make a case for it. With a distinctive creative style that is emblematic of a young, curious, technologically savvy generation, they are gaining recognition both at home and abroad. Unlike their predecessors, who took an interest in societal problems and politics, these contemporary artists are living in the moment and expressing their own emotions. As lifestyles around the world change, their aesthetics are also widely embraced. Here are some of our favorite Chinese female abstract artists that are setting the tone for the future of the movement.
Xiyao Wang
Born 1992 in Chongqing, China. Lives and works in Berlin.
Xiyao Wang is one of the most prominent young voices in abstract painting. Celebrated for her immersive and commanding paintings. Wang’s unique creative vocabulary is apparent in her distinctive use of colour, volume and texture. Her body of work draws her personal awareness and sensitivity, as she utilizes it to transfer experiences and feelings to the external world. With a combination of various techniques such as acrylic, oil, chalk, oil sticks, graphite, she seeks to create an equilibrium between the body and the canvas in a physical displacement. Her work includes multicolored and expressive lines that provoke the vastness of landscapes, movements and thoughts composing emotional, arrangements that grace the canvas in harmonious, dynamic movements, layered onto compact pastel-colored backgrounds. With a profound knowledge of both Asian and Western traditions, which she masterfully incorporates into her work results in large-scale works that are filled with energy, and movement.
Kristy M Chan
Born 1997 in Hong Kong China. Lives and works in London.
Kristy M Chan's creative process closely observes how social and natural environments shape one’s perception and identity. She explores the feelings of disorientation whilst existing between Eastern and Western cultures through kaleidoscopic colorfields and indistinct figures. Although her earlier works were semi-figurative, Chan’s recent pieces have shown a shift towards complete abstraction. She masterfully critiques the culture of excess that defines contemporary urban life and behavior with assertive and dynamic pieces. With her artistic practice that combines narratives of migration and displacement, her multilayered works often depart from her experience navigating her inquires of what means home. Her body of work has a distinctively kaleidoscopic and vibrant palette of jeweled tones that synthesizes together accidental and sometimes surreal junctures, while simultaneously conjuring the dizzying cadence of contemporary life.
Han Bing
Born 1986 in China. Lives and works in Paris.
Recognized for her disruptive yet sensual visual language in paintings that break down the barriers of illustrated reality and open up new dimensions. Han Bing’s practice draws on urban elements, including street scenes and architectural facades. Drawing inspiration from the patterns and textures that are displayed in cities, especially the mistakes and glitches, for the artist 'painting is a way to resist all the information that is being forced on us', and her observations of city life serve as a starting point for the processing of emotional impressions. Influences from theatre, science and literature are apparent in her body work, as Han allows the dynamics of the works to lead their compositions. Her works gradually move towards abstraction as figurative elements are filtered and deconstructed into fragments.
Zhang Zipiao
Born 1993 in Beijing, China. Lives and works in Shanghai.
Through subtle and loaded abstractions that echo social media culture as well as personal experience, emerging contemporary artist Zhang Zipiao's work explores shifting modern social standards and the politics of representation. Zhang’s inspiration comes from online channels such as YouTube and Instagram. She questions and reflects on how social media has influenced the perception of beauty, as well as how it led users to create online personas that mask their true selves. With nuanced erotic scenes and subject juxtapositions, Zhang explores these themes in an unconventional and playful way. Zhang Zipiao's paintings are made with bold sweeping, gestural brushstrokes, accompanied by graphic line work and sharp contrasting colours. Filled with irreverent visuals and metaphors, the large-scale artworks have references to Internet culture, objects from daily life, and meditations. The young artist has held three solo exhibitions around Beijing, in the Ying Space Gallery, Star Gallery and White Space Gallery.
