The Washboard is a Language: A Study of Nüshu (女书) and Women’s Histories in Tao Aimin’s Her Secret Code

The artist has collected over a thousand washboards from women living in China’s countryside, transforming them into sculptural and two-dimensional works. In Her Secret Code, Tao’s first exhibition in Australia, the arched ridges of the washboard—bearing the unique traces of their former user’s touch—methodically re-appear and haunt the space in imprints and impressions.

Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions

Tao Aimin featured in today’s issue of The Australian

Tao Aimin is featured in today’s issue of The Australian on the occasion of her solo exhibition Her Secret Code: Tao Aimin and Nüshu, opening tonight.

Her Secret Code: Tao Aimin and Nüshu

In this time of a continuing “#MeToo” reckoning, and a long overdue reappraisal of the work of female artists, Vermilion Art celebrates the work of women with three significant solo shows in March to July 2023.

Marks Left by Life: an Interview with Tao Aimin

“In the past, Chinese history has been dominated by Confucian and male culture. Nüshu is absolutely comparable to the dominant language used by men” – Tao Aimin

Beyond the Ordinary: Exhibition review by Luise Guest

‘Out of the Ordinary’ is the title of Guan Wei’s solo exhibition at Sydney’s Vermilion Art, a description that also fits the man himself. From his early years in Beijing’s post-Cultural Revolution contemporary art scene, to his arrival in Hobart in 1989 and emergence as the most prominent of the so-called ‘post-Tiananmen’ generation of Chinese artists in Australia, Guan Wei developed an art practice that merges two worlds…’