Last year, the work of scores of world-class mainland contemporary artists went on display in the massive Inside Out exhibition at Hong Kong's Museum of Art. What was in short supply, in this largely laudable show, though, was work from female artists.
The absence of many Chinese women artists is becoming glaring, especially if you compare it to what's happened in the West. In China, the artist is still some heroic male genius. The mainland's increasing openness and exposure to the West may mean that viewpoint is slowly changing, but female artists still remain few and far between, held back in their creativity by what their society expects of them.
It's rare to see an all-female show of contemporary mainland female artists. Four Chinese Women Artists at Art Scene China, a small gallery which is frequently turning up interesting finds, goes some way toward correcting that. It features the work of Yu Chen, Wang Jing, Yuen Nimchi, and Hao Li. All of them are, in various ways, unexpected.
Yu Chen paints twin figures with mask-like faces, her comment on the contradictory and complementary sides of our nature (Sleeping At Night, right). 'Although I have painted two people, they both look the same,' she says. 'They are intended to be the same person. In fact, at any time, we are split into two. One is myself and the other is the social one. These two sides are usually not in harmony.'
Hao Li's are the only gentle works on show, offering a peek into her life. She combines pastels and sensitive observations about ordinary people in rich domestic images.
Yuen Nimchi draws on European literary references, characters and styles. Her figures stare hauntingly out, all clashing colours and textures in disturbing oil paintings, like the Influence Of Yellow Wallpaper (above).