Born in Hubei Province in 1966, at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Ma Yanling came to adulthood during the turbulent late 1980s, experiencing the alternating greater and lesser freedom of expression that characterised this era. Her family’s property was confiscated during the Cultural Revolution and her grandparents were outcast, reviled as despised landlords; her grandfather died in prison. As a result of these bitter formative experiences, Ma looks back to earlier periods in Chinese history, pre-1949, for the nostalgic imagery in her paintings. She thinks deeply about the position of women and the ways in which an authoritarian state has defined identities and constrained relationships.

Ma Yanling is best known for her paintings of beautiful women – Hollywood movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn and the ubiquitous Marilyn, and Shanghai divas of the 1930s. Meditations on celebrity and glamour, at their heart lie dark secrets. Ma applies fine brush strokes derived from the eighteen styles of traditional calligraphy over the entire surface of her canvas, creating a net-like grid partially shrouding the features of her subjects. They look through her meticulous brush-strokes as if through a fine curtain, behind which the painful realities of their lives remain obscured. Curator Li Xianting described how her ‘leaf vein’ strokes, knitting and weaving across the canvas, create a “veil of silk.” The painter must hold her breath and draw each line with one sweep of the brush. If even one stroke was flawed it would reduce all her previous labour to nothing.

The White Rabbit Collection is one of the world’s most extensive and significant collections of contemporary art from China. With a focus on works created since the year 2000, the Collection contains almost 3,000 works by over 750 artists and continues to expand. Note that when you click on the link below you will be forwarded to the White Rabbit Collection website.

Explore the work of Ma Yanling in the collection database