The moving art of Lalan

Painting with the body

The Lalan show at ASHK is the fourth in a series of works by 20th-century women Chinese artists. Artists featured in previous editions include Fang Zhaoling, Pan Yuliang and Irene Chou. The idea, says Mong, is to revisit works by women who were active in the same period as the internationally acclaimed Chinese master painters such as Wu Guanzhong, Chu Teh-chun and Zao, "but weren't appreciated in their lifetime."

Doris Poon, ASHK associate curator, who co-curated the show with Veronique Bergen, adds that the series is "essentially about women who overcame the challenges of their time to shine as artists. Also we explore their connection with overseas cultures."

In this league of remarkable women, Lalan is uniquely distinguished. Not only did she relentlessly experiment with different forms of artistic expression, but she also managed to put them all into the same exhibition space. It was as if the cloudburst of restless energy that she had poured into paintings like Go with the Wind, 1968, in the early stage of her painting life, could not be contained any longer within the finite space of a canvas. So Lalan worked her own body like a moving paintbrush, continuing the journey from where her painting had left off through dance and music.