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Panni
Poh Yoke Loh
visited
China
In May 2006
Article by Panni Poh Yoke Loh Chair of Sub Centre UK -International Women Artists Council-INWAA-UK
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In 1999 I had the privilege of meeting Madame Yuen Chee Ling in Malaysia whilst visiting my family. The meeting happened unexpectedly whilst visiting art galleries with a friend. It was, however a meeting a shall never forget and it remains in my memory as a ‘Special Day’ in my life’ From that time on Yuen Chee Ling invited me to exhibit in ‘Her Presence in Colours IV’ at the Suan Pakkad Palace Museum in Bangkok, Thailand and to be the Chair of the UK sub centre for the International Women Artists Council. Since then I have met many wonderful women artists from around the world, sharing art, stories and life I as a result of the wonderful work of Yuen Chee Ling.
In 2002 I was again privileged to work with Yuen Chee Ling on organising ‘Her Presence in Colours V’ in my hometown Sheffield in the U.K. when we held an exhibition, conference and weeklong series of workshops for women from 9 different countries. Following this myself and other UK women artists who I have been building links with since 1999 were again privileged to exhibit in ‘Her Presence in Colours VI’ at the Manningham Gallery in Melbourne, Australia where I met old friends from around the world from previous events.
One such friend was Zhao Heng, Chair of INWAA-China. I am very pleased to announce that I got married to Mr. Lee Furness and last month we took our honeymoon in China. Lee has been a great support to me over many years and was instrumental in supporting me in organising all the events for ‘Her Presence in Colours V’ in the U.K. in 2002. I am also very pleased to say that when we knew we were going to visit China we began to contact friends we knew to meet up with them. Zhao Heng was very pleased to arrange to meet us showing us around and to introduce us to more new friends.
Visiting China was an amazing experience and I was delighted to visit the national Art Gallery in Beijing as well as other art galleries and districts. Below is an image of myself and Zhao Heng on the visit to the National gallery in Beijing. I was impressed by the traditional Chinese watercolour paintings which were very striking and reminded me of the power of natural forces which many of them depict. I was also impressed by the skill of the large scale oil paintings showing scenes of life in the countryside and in the mines and the labour involved.
On the trip we were also very fortunate to visit many art districts accompanied by good friends and saw contemporary art of China based Chinese artists along side art of western artists. This was interesting for me as I am a Chinese artist living in the west.
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