Artwork Description

Title: Female Colonisation Woman Smoke
Artist: Xiao Ping
Date: 2007
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 82.7 × 63 in (210 × 160 cm)

1. Artwork Identification
This commanding oil on canvas by Chinese master Xiao Ping, Title:d Female Colonisation Woman Smoke (2007), presents an arresting image of a female figure rendered with ghostly pallor and unflinching intimacy. The composition is defined by the monumental scale of the woman’s face and upper torso, surrounded by a surreal field of cigarette butts and soft, bleeding blossoms. The artwork’s stark juxtaposition of delicate florals with violent chromatic bruises and contemporary detritus invites critical reflection on femininity, consumption, and corporeal vulnerability.

2. Artistic Style and Influences
Xiao Ping's work straddles the emotive sensibilities of post-Socialist Chinese contemporary painting with a hyperrealist yet dreamlike aesthetic. Drawing upon a palette of faded flesh tones, bruised reds, and surgical whites, he invokes both the psychological unease of Zhang Xiaogang’s bloodline portraits and the fleshy theatricality of Lucian Freud’s figuration. The surreal scattering of cigarette stubs disrupts the portrait’s beauty, positioning the work within a visual vocabulary of disquiet and postmodern critique.

3. Historical Context
Created in 2007, this piece emerges from a period of growing introspection within Chinese contemporary art, as artists wrestled with identity, materialism, and the aftermath of rapid modernization. Xiao Ping, already an established academic and institutional figure, turned his gaze toward societal tensions concerning gender, media, and bodily agency. Female Colonisation Woman Smoke appears to respond to the cultural commodification of the female form and the psychological scarring of modern life—framed within China’s broader discourse on trauma, gender roles, and individual sovereignty.

4. Provenance
Provenance documentation can be provided upon contact.

5. Condition and Conservation
The painting is in very good condition. The surface shows no signs of craquelure, discoloration, or restoration. Minor variations in pigment density are consistent with the artist’s technique and intentional surface effects.

6. Artistic Significance
Female Colonisation Woman Smoke stands as a poignant testament to Xiao Ping’s psychological depth and mastery of painterly tension. A veteran artist and educator, Xiao holds esteemed roles within Jiangsu’s art institutions, and this work exemplifies his late-career foray into emotionally saturated figuration. Its unsettling elegance and thematic complexity situate it not only as a striking visual statement but also as a compelling collectible with cultural and scholarly resonance.