In an instant No. 9

Rural women’s hard life has been the core subject of Tao’s artistic practice for two decades. The recurrent motifs in her paintings, prints, video works are the traditional wooden washboards and Nüshu (i.e. women script). She had collected more than one thounsand warshboards, many directly from their female users. Nüshu is a type of secret script created and used among “sworn sisters”, as seen in the proposed scroll painting.These writings with their unique style, usually slanted and hook-like, which some believe was developed from embroidery stitches, often express the joys and sorrows of women’s lives. Combining rubbing, ink painting and calligrphy,Tao injects the contemporanity to these centuries old art forms in China and resonate with the gender and labour issues widely addressed in current art world.

Tao Aimin, a multidisciplinary artist, graduated from the Fine Arts Department of National Huaqiao University, Fujian in 1999. She completed an Assistant Lecturer training course in the Mural Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2001. Her “River of women” was nominated as the most influential installation work in the “30 works for 30 years” in China in 2016.