“WOMAN WANTED”---- IN SEARCH OF “HER”
Shiu Yee Yan, Judy
Seven local female artists of different backgrounds, ages and characters joined together to express their views about woman art for an exhibition entitled “Woman wanted”. This is the fifth exhibition of the Woman Festival by the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.
Hui Chui Hung, Bell-- Untitled
Enteringthe thematic gallery, what first comes into eyesight is a large fish-like animal. It is actually a big-beached whale according to the artist’s words in the exhibition pamphlet. The artist, Bell Hui Chui Hung, has heard of many reasons accounting for the whale’s death, she questioned about the say that whales lost the ordinates so they swam to the shore and died. This artwork is a fascinating one for the youth as it has a cutie outlook. More is that, the artist makes up a fairy tale for it.
It is quite shocking to see this large artwork to be produced by a woman artist. Even though this whale is not strictly adhered to the theme of exhibition, we can still have a taste of Bell’s stylistic manner. Bell used a mix media in this art piece. We are not caught by the whale’s size only; it’s also the fairy tales that touches our heart.
Bell is not interested in defining woman art. She rejects any authoritarian dictates and sexual definitions. To the new generation, the inequality between the two sexes no longer exists; this issue has lost its meaning in modern world. Therefore, Bell went with the whale to search for his or her own coordinate, own interpretation of art.
Kwok Ying-- Welcome
As we lookcarefully into the exhibition, then no sooner we will turn back to the Welcome carpet hanging in front of the wall. Looking at it from a distant, it seems like that there is nothing special about this artwork. When we examine the work closely, we will see the finely rendered strokes by Kwok Ying. As we hang around the carpet for more time, we can feel the patience and the tender of Kwok. It is by this simple and repeated knitting task, Kwok knits us to her sentiment, her personal experience of life. No big theory is needed to tell, it only touched your heart through pattern of lines.
Then Kwok paints the wooden-like pattern in the other works. Her painting skill is so precise that it is really like a woodblock print. One may find it difficult to convey the message behind her work, for Kwok simply work on what she gets from daily life; she does not try to bring out anything intentionally. But also, one may easily fall into her production process while admiring her work. We cannot solely interpret through the content of her work; all we need to do is to spare more time, more patience to read through Kwok’s line so as her mind. Her works involved simple tasks, but are delicately presented.
Wong Wo Bik-- Border of memory
Walking into the worldof the photographer Wong Wo Bik, she brought us to the “Border of Memory”, a three dimensional visual glass box with memorial photographs She captured the images of historical infrastructure of Hong Kong including Loke Yew Hall of the University of Hong Kong and Lai Yuen. These images are both static and energetic in a sense that the infrastructure was disrupted by people of their age. Wong makes good use of the plastic plate, the light and the photographs to stimulate visual effects and to create a space for us to revise our memory. Though Wong paid much afford to the background setting of the photographs, the photographs seems not convincing enough to arise sentiment. We are really standing at the border of the memory, but not yet fell into prey of the deep collective memory.
Wong Wo Bik believes that arts can crash down the boundary between the two sexes. When one concentrates on one’s work, he or she will forget about all the conventions behind. Not only men and women share different perspective of arts, but every one of us has our own interpretation of arts. There is no need to clarify or distinguish each of them. This belief advocates Wong to continue working in the male dominant photographic circle.
Li Wei Han-- Man Wanted: Work within the words
At the mean time, our beloved ceramic artist, Li Wei Han kept on using the cute, fat, female ceramic figures to tell us the gender relations in a humorous way. She tried to transform different parts of the Chinese characters into English and into visually ceramic figures. She translates each Chinese character into English, simply by combing each component’s meaning into one. This is actually one of the common ways that the Hong Kong student used to read about the difficult Chinese word.
All the Chinese characters she has chosen involved the components of “女”, which means woman in Chinese, and by mixing the “女” with the other components, Li attempts to interpret the new meaning for that word. For example, the word “姦”means rape in Chinese. But Li’s decodes it as three women chatting in her ceramic figures, because “姦” is made up of three “女”s. In this way, the original meaning of “姦(rape) is transformed into three women. While other words are translated with the help of the tools, like the word “妾”can be spilt into two parts i.e. “立”and “女”. “立” means standing in Chinese, so Li used a chair and a standing figure to present this word. Actually, “妾”means concubine in Chinese.
Li’s ceramic figures are fat, muscular and rough. It resembles those ceramics of the Neolithic period, there are no clear facial features and their clothes are not described comprehensively. This reflects her will to simple and unworldly life. She wrote that she wants to trace back to her childhood’s joyful days, so she plays with the “word-breaking” game.
Unlike the other women artists, Li tries to seek the definitions of the two sexes through re-interpretation of Chinese characters. Though some of the explanations are quite ridiculous, the figures’ body language already generates noticeable visual effects. We are all familiar with her way of decoding words for we may have tried once in our childhood, we feel more intimate about her artwork.
Yuen Man Wah, Eva-- Fourth Dimension
At the other corner, we found the installation artist, Eva Yuen Man Wah making over one hundred bamboo stands and paper figures with a Chinese poem as background. These traditional Chinese paper figures are placed on the stage like having their performance. Each figure has a notable hairstyle, which helps us to identify their dynasty. They represent women’s images of different period ranging from the Tang dynasty to the Mo government. With the dim light effects, there is a sense of mystery around. Their facial expressions are blurred, they look like the same. But once you take a closer look, you will discover that each of them is different; each of them has their own story to tell. Her artwork conveys a real sense of “in search of her”. This is one of the most expressive works about feminine experience.
We know there are many brave women in history, but how many brave women’s names do we actually remember? Perhaps Eva is right. To us, these outstanding women are like the blurry faces of paper figures that flashed through our life, flashed through our memory. Eva just captured this very moment of our remembrance to remind us these heroic mistresses did play their parts in our life.
Lau Lee Lee, Lily-- OnThe 2nd Border
Besides, we can also meet the cartoonist Lily Lau Lee Lee on her “On The 2nd border”. She employed a great contrast of color in her cartoons; the pictures are abstract and unique. The reading order of this comic is not coherent, so it makes you dizzy and annoyed while reading it. More is that, its content is fragmental and the images are like snap shots, which are quite difficult to catch with. On the contrary, the captions are touching and helpful in analyzing her work. Lily’s cartoons bear a mature technique and a distinctive format that reveals her professional rank.
“On the 2nd border” involved a popular subject of eating, life and sex. Lily’s work is a self- retrospective one which digs up the gender relations as well as our self-analysis. She is studying abroad and this stimulated her to investigate more about distance and border. Her artwork always reflects different moods about living abroad. And this cartoon of her is also an expressive craft of her that is full of passion. “
Sin Yuen-- No. 1-X
The exhibition goes on and we will see the painter, Sin Yuen who is sensitive about the passing ages. Sin’s work is a two dimensional one and in some way similar to a painting. These skin-like objects are hanged on the board by several thick nails. In between them, we can find the white wave-like objects. With the use of the sharp colors, these objects covey a successful visual impact to the viewer.
”No 1-X” shows us an aging skin of a mother. Sin is interested in the changes of our bodies as times passed by. She used a number of creasy clothes or skins to symbolize the footsteps of life. The folds of the clothes indicate the wrinkles of the elderly women. The female body has entailed a lot of bondages on women. Women care about their appearance so much that they even put beauty as their life goals. She questioned about plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery. Each wrinkles has its value of existence, they represent our past and they are proves of our life experience. One should not erase them simply for acquiring beauty. A woman should know more about their inner feelings before they could develop their own character. They should not follow the trend blindly without sensible judgment.
Sin is affectionate, sensitive and attentive. She observes human life and shares her opinions. On the other hand, her art piece is coarse, rough and violent. “No 1-X” combined the features of both men and women artists.
Every piece of the artwork on display carries its own story and sentiment. Their works spell out their emotion and this definitely help molding the identity and the uniqueness of women artists.
Regardless of whether the artists have related their artwork with gender intentionally or not, this exhibition was carried on with other “woman art” exhibitions at the same time. On one hand, it reminds us that we should not ignore women’s contributions to arts while this also implied the inequality in the field of art creation. It seems like that we never find something like the “men’s art”, nor did any museums open exhibitions solely about the male artists. Does this mean that art is already a male dominant profession? In fact, female artists are usually stereotyped as emotional, sensitive, observant to oneself and unconcerned with politics. All these perceptions are restraints to female artists’ creativity. When we wonder about Bell Hui’s strength to make such a large whale, we are framing and labeling women’s art. It is only when we give up using the term “ women art”, give up framing female artists’ work, did we have the chance to achieve equality between the two sexes. This exhibition offers us a valuable opportunity to re-consider the definition of “women art”.
The seven local female artists perform representative work in one gallery room. But it is a pity that only female artists participate in this exhibition. No doubt the exhibition curators are still bonded by the sexual category that they only invite female artists to present their views. If the male artists are invited to join this gender definition game, then the exhibition will be more appealing and the discussion will be more thorough.
This exhibition is one of the most impressive one that I have seen during last year.It shares a controversial topic about women’s status. I have visited this exhibition for more than twice and each visit enhances my understanding to each artwork. From their displayed work, I recognized that arts belong to all; they are not a possession of men or women, but a medium of all.
©Shiu Yee Yan, Judy 2003.
First written as an essay for the Hong Kong Art Workshop course of the Department of Fine Arts, the University of Hong Kong.