Invisible Ink : Feminism and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Art

Luise Guest

ISBN 10: 1350433950 / ISBN 13: 9781350433953

Published by Bloomsbury Academic Feb 2026, 2026

About this Item

Neuware - Reassesses the contribution of women artists to the field of contemporary Chinese art with an in-depth account of five artists who reference the traditional form of ink and brush painting to subvert existing art historical narratives.

Seller Inventory # 9781350433953

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Invisible Ink : Feminism and Identity in Contemporary Chinese Art
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic Feb 2026
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350433950
• ISBN 13: 9781350433953
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 236W x 154H x 18D millimeters 236 millimeters width by 154 millimeters height by 18 millimeters depth
• Weight: 567 grams

About this title

Synopsis

What does it mean to be a woman artist – or a feminist artist – in China today? Analyzing how Chinese women artists have reinvented traditional forms of ink and brush painting, Invisible Ink shows how the use of ink in their work becomes a tool of gender and art historical subversion in contemporary Chinese art.

The book explores how the work of Bingyi, Ma Yanling, Tao Aimin, Xiao Lu and Xie Rong invoke contemporary manifestations of the traditional Chinese form of ink and brush painting to explore themes of the embodied, gendered experience of Chinese identity, including: motherhood and daughterhood; the exercise of state control over fertility in the implementation of the One Child Policy; and the experience of menopause in a society that prizes youth and beauty.

Each chapter examines one artist, analysing carefully selected key works and drawing on interviews with the artists themselves. It positions the artists as intervening, not only in historically exclusive, elitist literati traditions, but also in contemporary art discourses in which their contributions have been similarly marginalised. It explores the ambivalent views of the artists towards (Western) feminism and positions their work as counter-hegemonic expressions of a specifically Chinese experience of patriarchy.

Addressing an understudied aspect of contemporary Chinese art, this book powerfully illuminates the material culture of ink and brush painting through a transcultural, intersectional feminist lens, revealing the ways in which the form bridges Chinese history and the present day.

About the Author

Luise Guest is an independent researcher, writer and curator, and a sessional academic at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She is the author of Half the Sky: Conversations with Women Artists in China (2016) and has written for many journals and art magazines including Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art and Journal of Chinese Contemporary Art.