Chen Qingqing

The late 1990s witnessed the rise of Chinese feminist art and Chen Qingqing as one of its leading lights. Born in Beijing in 1953, she studied traditional Chinese medicine and English and German literature, and then developed a powerful individual style embodying a linguistic system of spiritual intuition--a language made to address heavy themes with delicacy and lightness. Her subjects and methods are not limited to the motifs of love, life and soft materials, but include 9/11, clones, Tiananmen and spare mechanical parts. And the extensive scope of her oeuvre transcends national borders as well as gender boundaries: Chen Qingqing has performed in Vienna and Bangkok as well as Beijing and Shanghai, and shown in Korea, Japan and the Netherlands.