Artist Profile Bingni Xia

Artist Statement

A Sighing Woman was completed in the first half of this year using Chinese ink, Chinese painting pigments and appropriate amounts of color powder on traditional Chinese rice paper. The colors and lines of the picture symbolize the shaping of women by tradition, which is a kind of oriental beauty. Abandoning the realistic deformation treatment, it shows the awakening of contemporary Chinese women and a certain inner truth.

This series expresses my thoughts on women’s life and destiny. Women all over the world are struggling to make choices between family and career, especially Chinese women. They are required to sacrifice themselves in marriage and be self-reliant and give back to the family in the workplace. The final result is either the regret of giving up the family or being bullied and exploited by the family because of losing their jobs. Women’s contributions to the family are regarded as worthless. The difficulties I experienced in marriage and raising children also prompted me to try to express the issue of women’s destiny. So I hope to inspire contemporary women to have more self-affirmation and awakening; at the same time, the value of women should be widely affirmed by the world, whether in the family or in the workplace. Therefore, I want to use aesthetics to arouse people’s thinking about life and give women more attention, respect and more power to choose. At the same time, I hope that my works can help more people understand Chinese culture and aesthetics, and serve as a bridge for cultural exchanges between the East and the West.

Artist Biography

I am Bingni Xia, born in China in 1978. I started studying fine arts at the age of ten and have a deep affection for painting. I majored in graphic design in college and briefly studied comics and animation in France, now living in California. I have a dream of painting. As a mother of three children, my works are mostly based on women. Women wearing traditional Chinese clothing, Hanfu, are my source of inspiration. I grew up under the influence of Chinese culture, and Chinese symbols and oriental aesthetics naturally flow out in my creations.