Jiny is a rebellious spirit since childhood, fighting for her own as for the human cause in general and within that specifically took a feminist profile.
As the forth and not much welcomed daughter of her father’s it didn’t go down well with her that her younger brother was the apparently preferred male jewel of the family. She resisted to become the docile daughter it was hoped for…..
When the Tiananmen Student Protests started she was a participating student from early on – and as long as her feet held; which got infected from strain, rain and dirt: when the socks didn’t come off anymore and she could barely walk she had to return home; which might have been a blessing in disguise as she was spared the clamp down by military and riot police.
After graduating 1991 in economics she decided that that’s not her cup of tea and enrolled at the Hangzhou Fine Arts Academy during a time of relative but actually increasing liberalism. As she needed to pay for the studies she worked as a portraitist and poster painter in various environments. After graduation she was appointed one of the art editors of the Peoples Daily but a devastating experience during an affair with one of the so called princelings made her decision to leave China for Germany final.
Jiny is as communicative as she is courageous and bold – which is one of the reasons for her successful rise as an immigrant artist between East and West (the other being an outstanding artistic talent). Much has been written about her feminist career as one of The (three) Bad Girls becoming The Bald Girls (bold girls would fit equally) and numerous performances in a variation of the Beuys Social Sculpture. What is most striking is her wit in combining political and societal criticism with a profound repertoire of will-fully adopted symbolism from both hemispheres, one of the most obvious being the painting of “BuddhaLisa” on a silk road track.
Her skill and good luck enabled and enables her to still travel to China regularly – even while a number of her paintings have been banned and removed from exhibitions there. May her good angel continue to protect her in what she is doing for holding a globalized world accountable….!
If you would like to know more, there is a new and excellent biography available: JINY LAN, The Art of Subversion, by Qinna Shen
tap, Basel Dec. ‘25