About the artwork
Cui Xiuwen, one of the most influential independent female artists in China today, combines in her artistic vision precision and incisive thoughts, allowing her to penetrate and explore the deep contradictions within human nature. Her works plunge us in white, cold, and empty landscapes. Resembling snow deserts, nothing but naked trees breaks the infinite perspective of her sceneries where sky and ground merge to mask the horizon. Two figures appear like a leitmotiv in Cui Xiuwen's work - a schoolgirl and her doll replica. Their white bodies, like a camouflage, seemingly blend into the snow, emerging shyly, showing a complex communion with the environment.
About the artist
Cui Xiuwen ( 1967 - 2018 ) was one of the most influential independent female artists in China. Her artistic vision combined precision and incisive thought, allowing her to penetrate and explore the deep contradictions within human nature. Her images and pictures were inspired by the elements of concept, ethos, and visual performance, with an emphasis on simplicity and bold imagination.
She was the first Chinese artist to have her works exhibited at the Tate Britain, and her video masterpiece Ladies Room was in the collection of the Centre Pompidou in France and the Ullens Foundation Collection in Belgium. In 2008, she was awarded the prestigious Shu-Fang Hsiao Art Foundation Outstanding Female Artist Award by the Wu Zuoren International Fine Arts Foundation. In 2010, she was named as one of the AAC Art China Annual Influential Artists, and was the first woman to receive the honour. The same year, she won the Youth Artist Award, an accolade given by the Chinese Art Critics Annual.