Jiny Lan

Jiny Lan is an internationally renowned Chinese concept artist. A central theme of her work is the effects of contemporary history on private biographies. In paintings of distinctive aesthetics she questions moral and traditional pictures of Chinese women in an extensive series. The most innocent women are portraits of young brides from the provinces of China. These are young widows who have not married again and were honoured posthumously with this title. Jiny Lan had pictures from 1999 painted over in 2011 to make time visible. The limit of one marriage protected all of the rights of the late husband’s family. Traditional expectations show the passive poses of the women, in Jiny Lan’s series female fairytale. Their complacent poses are typical for traditional Chinese paintings and the communist past. The artist also has these overpainted and surprises the viewer with painted oranges which are associated with the translation of the Bible into Chinese. The fruit of knowledge, an orange, is often used by Jiny Lan in her work. In the biggest series value added movement the artist stretches her boundaries by creating large format mixed media work. On a printed image of a painting she paints new versions of one motif. The series has landmarks: the store gallery Vittorio Emanuele in Milan or the view of the Tian'anmen-Square. In front of the main entrance to the Forbidden City, the imperial palace, Jiny Lan had demonstrated in June 1989 with the democracy movement during the rainy season for weeks. She suffered from the persistent rain, her feet suffered from days in the water, so the Red Cross evacuated her. Shortly afterwards the square was cleared by the Chinese government. The artist owes the water a lot. Jiny Lan shows in every picture of this series that the water is a spraying, energetic element which she can trust and that it accompanies her to something new."
- COLMAR SCHULTZE-GOLTZ, 2015