Hong Kong's
artist for the new millenium
Page 2
broken down barriers of all sorts. In the five years since she became a full-time artist, Man's work has been featured in more than 30 art exhibits.
Her latest success is an installation at a major exhibition of modern Chinese art at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which opened in March. Titled "Beautiful Flowers," the installation is her best known work. The unsuspecting art lover will come upon what appears to be a simple white room adorned with small delicate flowers. On closer inspection, however, the "flowers" turn out to be red-stained sanitary napkins surrounded by white egg shells.
Although
Man claims there is no unifying theme in her works, this exhibition and
others like it suggest that her work has a particular resonance with the
female experience in Hong Kong. In "Beautiful Flowers," for example, she
tries to comment on how a woman's period is seen as something unclean
in Hong Kong.
"People have this perception that the period is something shameful and dirty," she says. "With the installation of 'Beautiful Flowers' I tried to present it as something beautiful."
Man's provocative works have won her attention not only from the local Hong Kong press but also from international women's magazines like Marie Claire, which called her "one of the most intelligent women for the 21st century." Man however knows that such notoriety could prove fleeting and could never sustain her career.
"Maybe a year from now I won't be famous anymore," she says "But it doesn't really matter to me. Art is what matters. "
From an early age, Man showed a talent for art. In elementary school, she recalls sitting in the back of the classroom doodling in her textbooks as the teacher droned on at the front of the class.
"My textbooks were always covered with cartoons and pictures," she says.
While Hong Kong secondary schools had no art classes, she continued her explorations and taught herself how to draw. Local youth centers gave her
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Coming soon
In
late May, journalism students from
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Hong Kong. Watch for their reports.