Ah Xian (born 1960) is a Chinese-born artist based in Sydney, Australia.
Ah Xian was born in Beijing, China, in 1960. While both of Xian's parents worked at universities, Xian worked as a mechanical fitter and in a factory. Xian taught himself how to paint, though at one point was jailed overnight by the Chinese Communist Party for producing nude paintings. [1]
In 1989, Xian travelled to Australia to visit the University of Tasmania. He briefly returned to Beijing, but did not stay as the Tiananmen Square massacre on 4 June motivated him to leave China. [1] After leaving China, he applied for asylum in Australia. [2] Though his application was initially rejected in 1989, he was granted residency in Australia in 1995. [3]
Ah Xian has held several other art installations aside from the ones mentioned above. [7]
In addition to holding many of his own installations, Xian has also participated in a series of group installations with other artists as well. [7]
The Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art holds a collection of Chinese ceramics and related items assembled by Percival David that are on permanent display in a dedicated gallery in Room 95 at the British Museum. The foundation's main purpose is to promote the study and teaching of Chinese art and culture. The collection has some 1,700 pieces, mostly of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain from the 10th century to the 18th. It includes a painting, Scroll of Antiquities.
"Blue and white pottery" covers a wide range of white pottery and porcelain decorated under the glaze with a blue pigment, generally cobalt oxide. The decoration is commonly applied by hand, originally by brush painting, but nowadays by stencilling or by transfer-printing, though other methods of application have also been used. The cobalt pigment is one of the very few that can withstand the highest firing temperatures that are required, in particular for porcelain, which partly accounts for its long-lasting popularity. Historically, many other colours required overglaze decoration and then a second firing at a lower temperature to fix that.
Richard Bell is an Aboriginal Australian artist and political activist. He is one of the founders of proppaNOW, a Brisbane-based Aboriginal art collective.
Fiona Margaret Hall, AO is an Australian artistic photographer and sculptor. Hall represented Australia in the 56th International Art Exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2015. She is known as "one of Australia's most consistently innovative contemporary artists." Many of her works explore the "intersection of environment, politics and exploitation".
Mike Parr is an Australian performance artist and printmaker. Parr's works have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, including in Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States.
The Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, also referred to as the Clemenger Award, was a major, triennial, invitational art prize organised under the auspices of the National Gallery of Victoria and funded by the philanthropists Joan and Peter Clemenger. The Clemengers' gift was made in 1991 and the first award was made in 1993. The final award was made in 2009, after which the award ended.
Hossein Valamanesh was an Iranian-Australian contemporary artist who lived and worked in Adelaide, South Australia. He worked in mixed media, printmaking, installations, and sculpture. He often collaborated with his wife, Angela Valamanesh.
John Zerunge Young is a Hong Kong-born Australian artist.
Wang Jianwei is a new media, performance, and installation artist based in Beijing, China.
Kate Beynon is an Australian contemporary artist based in Melbourne.
Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds) is an art installation created by contemporary artist and political activist Ai Weiwei. It was first exhibited at the Tate Modern art gallery in London from 12 October 2010 to 2 May 2011. The work consisted of one hundred million individually hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds which filled the gallery's 1,000 square metre Turbine Hall to depth of ten centimetres.
Sally Smart is an Australian contemporary artist known for her large-scale assemblage installations that incorporate a range of media, including felt cut-outs, painted canvas, drawings, screen-printing, printed fabric and photography, performance and video. Her art addresses gender and identity politics and questions the relationships between body and culture, including trans-national ideas that shaped cultural history. She has exhibited widely throughout Australia and internationally, and her works are held in major galleries in Australia and around the world.
Nell is an Australian artist working across performance, installation, video, painting and sculpture. In 2013, she won the University of Queensland Self-Portrait Award. In 2017, she was inducted into the Maitland City Hall of Fame in the category of The Arts.
Sara Tse is a Hong Kong visual artist. She uses porcelain as her medium of expression. She combines a mastery of technique with sophisticated lyricism by transforming common objects, which resonated with her, into porcelain, evoking feelings, memories and history. During the period of her study in university, she pioneered in using porcelain to present her creation concept, rather than solely an objects appreciated from aesthetics perspective. She is the chairperson of the Hong Kong Ceramics Association.
Megan Cope is an Australian Aboriginal artist from the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island/Minjerribah. She is known for her sculptural installations, video art and paintings, in which she explores themes such as identity and colonialism. Cope is a member of the contemporary Indigenous art collective ProppaNOW in Brisbane.
Lindy Lee is an Australian painter and sculptor of Chinese heritage, whose work blends the cultures of Australia and her ancestral China and explores her Buddhist faith. She has exhibited widely, and is particularly known for her large works of public art, such as several iterations of The Life of Stars at various locations in China and on the forecourt of the Art Gallery of South Australia, and The Garden of Cloud and Stone in Sydney's Chinatown district.
A Chicken Cup is a bowl-shaped vessel made of Chinese porcelain painted in the doucai technique. Chicken cups were created during the Ming dynasty, during the Chenghua Emperor's reign in China, and originally functioned as a vessel to drink wine from. Chenghua Chicken Cups were created in an imperial kiln in the Jingdezhen porcelain factory, in Southern China. The Emperor Chenghua had the Chicken Cup created in the 15th century as an act of devotion for his empress mother who was recorded to have an appreciation for small objects and valued a simple design taste.
Vernon Ah Kee is a contemporary Australian artist, political activist and founding member of ProppaNOW. Based primarily in Brisbane, Queensland, Ah Kee is an Aboriginal Australian man with ties to the Kuku Yalandji, Waanji, Yidinji and Gugu Yimithirr peoples in Queensland. His art practice typically focuses on his Aboriginal Australian identity and place within a modern Australian framework, and is concerned with themes of skin, skin colour, race, privilege and racism. Ah Kee has exhibited his art at numerous galleries across Australia, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, and has also exhibited internationally, most notably representing Australia at the 2009 Venice Biennale and the 2015 Istanbul Biennial.
Yhonnie Scarce is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Australia, in particular Aboriginal South Australians. She has been active as an artist since completing her first degree in 2003, and teaches at the Centre of Visual Art in the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne.
Abdul-Rahman Abdullah is an Australian artist based in Western Australia, an elder brother of artist Abdul Abdullah. He works mainly in sculpture and installations.