Art Exhibition
Woman•Horse
by Nancy Ma
Woman•Horse is a series of ceramic work created by Nancy Ma to welcome The Year of the
Horse. This series will also be exhibited as one of the associated events for the 2014 Sydney Chinese New Year Festival – to celebrate the Year of the Horse.
Nancy has been investigating Chinese classic texts, culture and traditions, and studying their impact on Chinese women and their lasting influences on contemporary Chinese women.
In the Woman.Horse series, Nancy Ma created a new artistic expression of ‘mother’ by using the concept of putting the form of ancient script ‘woman’ and ‘horse’ together. This concept formed the basis of her artwork series which is to honour Chinese women and Chinese mothers.
Through the work Woman•Horse, Nancy wants to exemplify the conflict experienced by Chinese women: their role as women within the Chinese tradition, and their strong desire to break away from this role and exert their own identity.
This series of artwork embodies the deep roots of Chinese culture carried by modern Chinese women. It reflects the constant competing and contradicting forces enacting on the psyche of Chinese women. For example, there is a naturally close relationship between a mother and her child, and yet she is a protector as well as the need to be protected.
Nancy's work shows traces of passive/aggressive tendencies. It is not surprising that such conflicting and confusing sentiments are also becoming the characteristics of Chinese women who could not resolve or compromise their cultural heritage of the past and their aspirations for the future. Beneath the camouflage of humility and subservience there is usually an iron will and relentless strength (not to mention resentment). One can detect all these elements in Nancy's work.
More significantly, by using the occasion to commemorate The Year of the Horse, Nancy shows that by aligning Chinese women and horses, she has demonstrated the usually humble women's need to articulate strength, even though it is paradoxically through a traditionally masculine symbol of a horse.
Nancy's work is beautiful and yet the profound meanings she incorporated in it entices the viewers wanting to explore more.
Written by Angeline Oyang, OAM, December 2013