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Sandy Ng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong KongAbstract
This presentation examines how creative women mediated transnational experiences and asserted their identities through the feminization of craftsmanship in the twentieth century. Eileen Gray (1878-1976) solidified her professional status with her inventive designs and craftsmanship, particularly in her application of Japanese lacquer techniques to her furniture and interior design. Pan Yuliang (1895-1977) professed her identity through her artistic work. She was a prolific painter, creating numerous works that depict women from different social and cultural backgrounds. Her bronze sculptures are considered unusual as they are not a traditional form of artistic expression in Chinese culture. Rather, it belongs to Western artistic tradition that requires labour and strength, typically associated with masculinity. Both women established themselves through living and working in Paris in a period when the city thrived artistically. A comparative visual analysis of their works, including Pan’s Self-Portrait (1951) and Gray’s Screen (1923), alongside historical texts, will be scrutinized closely to contextualize the epoch in which they lived and worked. What roles did transnational artistic practices play in their works? How did their works reconcile transnational knowledge and cultural appropriation in an era of gender and racial inequality? Did the self-imposed exile lead to displacement, generating new perspectives in their works and contesting identity formation? This discussion will elucidate the transnational experiences embodied and mediated through the feminization of craftsmanship that allowed them to assert new forms of female authorship.
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