Studies of women’s art in the current century are redressing past invisibilities by involving diverse groups of women. However, new questions have been raised; how do we appreciate women’s artworks across cultural boundaries? How do we undermine the gender binary that has caused an imbalance in culture and in the art world? This thesis is concerned with these questions and studies eight installation works produced by eight women artists from Britain and China, with analysis that opens up more possibilities in a transcultural context. To achieve that, I provide a semiotic analysis to the selected artworks that is guided by a phenomenological feminist standpoint theory. These artworks are categorised into three principal themes: the female body, domesticity, and reproduction for a systematic interpretation. The analysis is enriched by semi-structured interviews with each artist as well as exhibition catalogues, art reviews, and scholarly publications. Throughout the analysis, the concept of entanglement also comes into play – I seek the common grounds while reserving the differences between the selected artworks. The result is termed ‘touchpoints’. I identify six touchpoints in this study that bridge the selected artworks to reach across the themes and also enable greater understanding of the dialogue between sociocultural differences. This thesis thus provides one way of reading the selected artworks and challenges the current sociocultural binaries inherent in gender/power relations through the production of transcultural knowledge.
Identifying touchpoints between British and Chinese women's art in the twenty-first century
Yang, Y. (Author). May 2021
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy