Pan Ying

b. 1962, Beijing

Artist

An ethnic Manchu, Pan Ying graduated from the Art Institute of the People’s Liberation Army (1983), specializing in traditional Chinese painting. She is now on the staff at the Fine Arts Department of the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing.

In her most mature works Pan repaints with the traditional gongbi technique strips and ribbons of white material arranged in endless monochrome combinations that spiral and intersect on the surface of the painting. Using a traditionally high artistic idiom, therefore, Pan Ying provides a cooler description of practices generally classified as belonging to ‘handicrafts’ and thus disregarded as ‘low’. Still the representation of what for centuries was classified as menial is replayed with elegant minimalist effects, reminiscent of drawing and etching that bestow the coiling movement of the thread with an abstract formal beauty. Pan Ying has participated in many exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including: ‘Century—Woman’ in Beijing (1998); ‘Die Hälfte des Himmels’ (Half of the Sky) at the Frauenmuseum in Bonn (1998); and ‘On This Side of the Sky: UNESCO Salutes Women’ in Art in Paris (2003).

Further reading

(1997).

Between Ego and Society: Exhibition of Contemporary Women Artists of China (exhibition pamphlet). Chicago: Artemisia Gallery.

(1998). Century Woman (exhibition catalogue). Hong Kong: Shijie huaren yishu chubanshe.

Dal Lago, Francesca (1999). ‘A Silent Revolution? Century—Woman, China Art Gallery, Beijing’ (exhibition review). ART AsiaPacific 22 (January).

Dewar, Susan (1996). ‘Beijing Report’ (review of ‘China Exposition ‘95’). ART AsiaPacific 3.1:101–2.

FRANCESCA DAL LAGO