This book contains forty-one color reproductions, mostly of Hu Ming’s recent work, including her acclaimed 14-meter-long Relic of the New 87 Immortals, completed in 2007. It also features a lengthy introduction to Hu Ming’s art by well-known Australian art historian and critic John MacDonald.
Born in Beijing in 1955, Hu Ming joined the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as a young teenager. She was granted leave to study at the Tianjin Art Academy, and on graduating was assigned work as artistic designer in the PLA’s film production unit. Retiring after twenty years’ service in 1985 with the rank of major, she traveled to New Zealand in 1990. There she turned from painting with Chinese inks and has since effectively transposed and developed the traditional Gongbi style to works executed with oils on canvas. Hu has taken the depiction of the seminude female body to new dimensions with work that exudes a unique sensuality and a dynamic realism. Her paintings, often showing women who are partially clad in PLA uniforms, are mischevious and provocative. In 1999 she relocated to Australia, where she has established herself as an important Sydney-based artist.
