How to be a
Woman-being?
As the final exhibition held at my high school's art gallery, this exhibition is a curation of my efforts from 2023 to 2025. "How to be a Woman-being?" is a question I continue to ask myself as I laugh, cry, shout, and contemplate.
May we paint our new lives.
-AC, 2025
Prelude: The Exhibition
Oil on Canvas, Size 40cm x 50cm
This piece, inspired by Cubism and Pablo Picasso’s “misogynistic” portraits of women, explores the traditional life cycle of women. As the figures’ body parts are reduced to organic shapes, a woman’s life is simplified into several stages. By alluding to Picasso’s Cubist style while depicting contrasting bystanders in the foreground, I comment on the isolated nature of women’s lives through the juxtaposition of color and style.
Beautiful like Diamonds in the Sky
Collage, Size 85cm x 85cm
From Mariam Schapiro’s "Femmage," I extended its purpose of making collages that entertain women. Recalling my childhood, I remember gathering pieces of unwanted wrappers and storing them as treasures. In keeping with this tradition, I used what my peers and I considered “trash” to create this collage of “treasures.” Perhaps we grew from this blanket of unwanted pieces, reflecting on our identity as we never got rid of it.
Unboxing
Colored Pencils, Charcoal, Pastel on Wood, Size 58cm x 64cm x 10cm (Variable)
This piece depicts consumerism, which is pegged to women’s lives from their teenage years to adulthood. From clothing to cosmetics and sanitary necessities to glamorous luxuries, a woman’s life is rooted in the repetition of unboxing one package after another. The material used, wood, accompanied by pastels and pencils, mimics the materials of cardboard boxes while ensuring details to recreate the fine details of luxuries.
Constrain to Free Her
Plaster Sculpture, Size 23cm x 12cm x 9.5cm
This piece contemplates how, paradoxically, women feel liberated from the constraining love of their surroundings. The empty, negative space carved away from the woman’s body mirrors her desire, where she awaits love to complete her. However, these arms and hands are also sculpted to mirror external forces intruding on the woman’s body, leaving the audience to ponder if the desire is coercive or liberating.
“May the Bride say Farewell to your Mother!”
Charcoal, Graphite, and Pastel on Paper, Size 39cm x 54cm
Inspired by a wedding practice in rural China, where the bride tears off a slice of meat from her mother's hand, the piece mirrors the bride's separation from her mother. This piece exaggerates this objectifying scene. By using a monochromatic color scheme and highlighting the beef in red pastel, I evoke horror in this tormenting wedding, documenting the tragic start of women as traditional wives.
“Your Perfect Guide To Be A Perfect Mother”
Acrylic, Pastel, Gel Pen, and Colored Pencils on Paper, Size 18.5cm x 103cm
This piece alludes to Federico Lorca's Play The House of Bernarda Alba. It speaks from the mother's perspective, who governs her daughters’ relationships to protect them from their village’s extreme supervision of chastity. This piece gives voice to mothers, presenting their unspoken struggles through the line work and revealing the social pressures on a single mother.
Tears of Words
Ceramic Masks with Wires and Heat-shrink Plastic, Size: 80cm x 80cm x 9 cm
Like art, literature defines perceptions. In Asian literature (Yu Hua’s "A Cry in the Drizzle" and Han Kang’s "The Vegetarian"), mothers are mournful, powerless, weak, and self-loathing bystanders and/or inflictors of their children’s struggles. Using ceramic masks, I recreate the exaggerated mothers painted along the lines, evoking reconsideration of how this era has defined women.
A New Life
Found Object (Candle with artificial carvings & melting) and Clay, Size 17.5cm x 13cm x 13cm
Candles are used in ancestral halls as memorials to deceased families, but women, the family's mothers, have a history of being shut away from gaining their deserved memorials. When modifying this found object, I burned wax to create the dripping marks of blood and carved round patterns to mimic the circles of rings of a tree, marking the years women spent contributing to their families.
Leaving the Room
Photography, Size 30cm x 40cm *3
This piece is more personal than the other pieces exhibited; I used the camera to capture myself, replaying moments from my time as a working artist. By separating this piece into a monochromatic triptych, I intensified the solitary nature of the three stages of calming my artist identity. It depicts the inherited feelings of self-abasement, fear, joy, and courage embedded in any passion women have, as well as what it takes to embrace them.
The Fire Goddess
Mixed Media on Wood, Size 113cm x 130cm x 15cm
Inspired by the red motif this exhibition underscores, this piece depicts women, like Prometheus, who stole fire for humans, grasping the blaze of life for all women. Unlike other pieces portraying women’s struggles, this assemblage illustrates the strength and hopefulness women fight to embody. Using mixed media, oil paint, and a color scheme, this piece helps depict women claiming life in every aspect of nature.
The New Exhibition
Acrylic on Canvas, Size 30cm x 40cm *3
This triptych alludes to two works by Pablo Picasso and to a debated exhibition on Picasso’s alleged misogyny held in NYC, USA. Inspired by the curator’s courage to challenge the underlying misogyny hidden amongst revered artists, I carry her spirit forward, redefining the traditional gender dynamic of men dominating women. In this exhibition, women, from the audience to the figures portrayed, are all free, vital, and thriving.