“In the Mood for Love – An Exhibition Featuring Chinese and Canadian Female Artists” will be grandly inaugurated at Poly Culture Art Center in Vancouver on 12th December, 2017. The exhibition is jointly organized by Poly Culture North America Investment Co.,Ltd. and Beijing Gauguin Culture Media Co.,Ltd., it is sponsored by Poly Culture Art Center and co-organized by Canada Seven Hundred Honor Foundation
The exhibition invites Ms. Chen Yi, Director of Poly Culture North America Investment Co.,Ltd. and Ms. Amelia Gao, Canadian Social Activist, Founder of Seven Hundred Honor Foundation and Director of Poly Culture Art Center to serve as its general producers, Dr. Fu Yijing, Research Associate from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts to serve as its academic chair, Ms. Dong Huiping, Associate Professor from the China Tianjin Polytechnic University and Static Images Director of CAFA Art Museum to serve as its curator. Artworks from nearly 30 renowned female artists from both China and Canada have been included in this exhibition, artists from China include Cai Jin, Chen Xi, Cui Xiuwen, Dong Huiping, Gao Qian, Geng Xue, Jiang Jie, Ji Yujie, Kang Lei, Lyu Yue, Peng Wei, Shen Ling, Shao Yiyang, Teng Fei, Wang Limin, Xiao Lu, Xiao Ge, Xiao Suhong, Yu Chen, Zhang Fan, Zhou Lan, Zhang Yanzi; artists from Canada include Dorothy Knowles, Emily Carr, Frances Semple, Marianna Gartner, Rita Letendre, Carollyne Yardley.
On the special occasion of the 150th anniversary celebrating the founding of Canada, this exhibition is of great significance to promote the Sino-Canadian exchanges of cultures and arts. Exactly as Ms. Chen Yi hopes, this exhibition will become a beginning and bridge, to continuously promote more exchanges and dialogues among females artists in China and Canada while contributing to the development and prosperity of the local cultural market along with the promotion of international cultural exchange; it also draws a perfect ending for a series of exhibitions in 2017 to “progress Chinese traditional culture and offer well-wishes for the celebration of Canada 150.” Ms. Amelia Gao also mentions that, as the initiator of Seven Hundred Honor Foundation, she feels that “I have the responsibility and obligation to build a bridge of artistic exchanges between China and Canada. I hope Chinese would play a more important role on the stage of multiculturalism in Canada,” thus she hopes “that there is an opportunity to held such an exhibition featuring female artists with high standard and quality.” Since contemporary women in her eyes are versatile and their have colorful lives, “with their unique perspectives and expressions, they describe their independent perception of human beings, society and the Nature with fine arts, they either focus on the reality or question the mind, with bold or implicit and restrained portrayal, from which their presentation of living conditions in various cultural backgrounds are revealed.” She believes “this exhibition featuring many internationally renowned female artists, provides a rare opportunity for Canadians to know about Chinese women and female artists,” this exhibition will bring about some new thinking and experience of beauty for those are living in Canadian multiculturalism; she also calls for more and more contemporary new women will participate in cultural and artistic activities, in social public activities, to express their opinions bravely while contributing their talent and energy, thus become a fresh and indispensable source of strength in the social development.
Curator Dong Huiping points out that, this exhibition is the first time that artworks by Chinese and Canadian renowned female artists have debuted on the same stage, which could be taken as the extension on the basis of the former exhibition “In the Mood for Love” in Beijing. There are several peculiarities in this exhibition: first of all, we can detect the sequences of developments in contemporary Chinese female art since China’s reform and opening-up from the artworks included in this exhibition. From the shot by the artist Xiao Lu who was born in 1960s fired on her work Dialogue at the “Chinese Modern Art Exhibition” in 1989, to The Poetry of Michelangelo by Geng Xue, who was born in the 1980s, it spans thirty years, the medium of art continues to extend and evolve; there are artists who have been active in the world of Chinese painting since 1990s such as Shen Ling, Jiang Jie, Cai Jin, Yu Chen, Cui Xiuwen, Teng Fei, as well as artists who have presented their unique style in recent years such as Gao Qian, Peng Wei, Zhang Yanzi, Kang Lei, Lyu Yue, Zhang Fan and Geng Xue, Chinese female artists have witnessed the development of this epoch and responded with special expressions. Secondly, a general appearance is not hard to find as their perspective of female art is closely related to their feelings and lives. No matter what media they use, what themes they work on, instead of saying that they are doing a single piece of work, it would be better to describe as poems from their hearts in various media. Thirdly, from the exhibition we can also see that the Chinese and Canadian female artists are creating a distinctive art style with local cultural characteristics, which had been profoundly influenced by the western modern and postmodern art in the 20th century, in the "Earth Village" described by the famous original media theorist Marshall McLuhan.
Dr. Fu Yijing, Academic Chair of this exhibition affirms the three key values of this exhibition: it is ingenuous as it centers around the actual presentation of artistic status and growth experienced by female artists from both China and Canada. It shows a kind of experience perception and thinking creations different from male artists, which instead highlighting the independent aesthetic character and spiritual orientation of contemporary women. She points out that female artists seek a personal breakthrough in the main theme of the times, and they tend to give a free presentation which is unofficial, depoliticized, non-ideologically but with radical feminist features, they create their own art space and discourse system. Even so, the discourse power of women in today’s society is still weak, they are different from male artists' dedication to major and grandiose themes on creations of paintings and there is a more self-emotional experience and reproduction in their works, portraying a realistic situation of cultivated females in cities. Secondly, it involves a variety of art forms, including Chinese ink and wash painting, oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, video art, jewelry design, fashion design and so on. In a multi-channel, multi-level, multi-faceted way of art extraction, the exhibition conducts comparative studies on the experiences, absorption and presentations of female artists that specialize in various disciplines, which provides an opportunity, to develop in-depth thinking on the common properties and individual characters of such a group of female artists. Thirdly, it tries to conduct a dialogue between China and the East, with various cultural backgrounds to observe the principles of art in China and the West.
The exhibition will remain on view at Poly Culture Art Center through 31st January, 2018.
Courtesy of the artists and Gauguin Gallery.
