Fanyaping.jpg (Photo : www.womenofchina.cn)
Female Chinese woodcut artist Fan Yaping proves herself equal to the men in her field as her works are exhibited in Beijing's Today Art Museum beginning Jan. 17 until March 5.
Fan created black-and-white prints with the theme "bed sheet" using a form of relief painting technique known as woodcut or woodblock printing, also technically known as "xylography."
Xylography is usually done by painting a design on the surface of a block of wood, carving out the parts which were not painted, and then putting a layer of ink to it to create a rich copy of the carved image, thereby creating an artwork with two levels of depth.
Fan, who was born in Hunan Province and graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, is famous for creating woodcut prints based on sexuality and women whose psyches are most clearly depicted in her artworks.
Her work commonly portrays women's negative emotions, including that of loneliness, rebelliousness and terror--all stunningly shown in a stark black-and-white contrast.
The exhibition--described in the report as one-of-a-kind--took on the very unique yet very simple artistic element of the razor-sharp contrast of the two colors and had created a "mysterious" art concept that left plenty to one's imagination.
Fan, being one of the few female contemporary woodcut artists, has been known to be someone who allows her passion and imagination flow freely through her works through her visually appetizing art executed in an innovative technique.
"It is a form of creation rather than a replication. The charm of woodcutting lies in its unpredictability. You need to wait until the print is fully complete before you can get fully picture what the woodcut print looks like. It is this kind of unpredictability that makes me carve on," Women of China quoted her saying.
