Siyu (Rita) Chen

Clairmont

The focal point of my work is the voice of a woman in the context of Chinese culture. I want my audience to feel as if they can hear it as they walk through the sequence of a woman’s life. Throughout the work, they will see the evolution of a girl who matures into adulthood and hear the sound of her voice; each of the female figures communicate a story and speak in varying tones.

Overall, my concept directly relates to the media I am using. I used watercolours to portray her in her youth as if to communicate that the child is capable of being transformed - the same way that watercolour can be altered with the adding or extracting of water. Acrylic, on the other hand, requires another layer of itself to be liable to change and thus, I use this medium to represent each figure from here on out. The density of the medium symbolises how it

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IB ART EXHIBITION | 2020 - 2021

roots itself into the canvas as if to outline a foundation. The subject is now constructing the beliefs that are likely to shape her future identity.

As an adolescent in the Red Ribbon Rebel, she rebels against the views she has been taught, instead looking within herself as a guide to morality. The act of opening a bottle with one’s teeth defies the conventional understanding towards women dressed up in Cheongsam, the foundation of her culture. Following the theme of the adolescent turning in towards herself, I was inspired to express this in the context of fashion conventions in our society by presenting a dauntless teen contradicting the societal constraints revolving around appearance.

As the audience moves on to the Xiao Wen, I want them to see how the adolescent evolves into a woman. However, I have intentionally given her masculine features to show contrast to the stereotypical beautified appearance; it is a subversion of Chinese cultural beauty standards. The final piece “Sound of Fury” is the audience’s final destination and represents the expression of the female voice: it is the process of a person screaming, and is linear to the sequence of events represented by each female figure. The child cannot speak: representing the child’s lack of autonomy and how she is susceptible to her surroundings. The adolescent learns to construct words: representing the start of consciousness and being self-aware and self-questioning. She is then an adult using her voice: representing her knowledge of culture and individualistic self which empowers her to exercise her voice. Yet the bowl is submerged in water, and this shows the excruciatingly harsh reality of how her voice was never heard.

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