Discourse On Expression Of Self-consciousness In Contemporary Chinese Oil Portraits Of Female Artist

Chinese female artists had accumulated a plentiful of sentiments and experience in the course of self-development. Meanwhile, under the influence of western culture, especially the feminism ideologies and movements, Chinese female artists became more concerned about their own spiritual aspiration. They started to dedicate themselves to those fields for which they have deep understandings. They put their thoughts and emotions that were formed during self-growth into their paintings. They expressed their true feelings about life and questioned the realities through those works. And they have uncovered various sentiments and opinions which were repressed, marginalized or hidden in a society that had been dominated by men for a long time. Thus, fields which were once overlooked or excluded by male artists became ideal areas for female artists to express their opinions and to display women’s unique inner world. This paper discussed different ways of women’s self-awareness expression in oil paintings by analyzing expressional forms and expressional inclinations in contemporary Chinese oil portraits of women, and combing with my experience of drawing my art work series The Mirror Says. It made a concrete analysis on the creation process of from The Mirror Says a conception to the end of completion. It emphasized on changes that my painting language, ideas and sentiments have undergone and clarified the significant impacts of feeling, idea, technique and formal language on my painting. In this paper, artistic expression of individuality is considered as a final destination of painting, and it reveals new meaning of painting creation.