Shanghai exhibition | Celebrating Women: A Visual Dialogue of Her Narratives

As spring unfolds in Shanghai, the city’s artistic vibrancy rises with the season. To mark International Women’s Day, Christie’s is pleased to present Celebrating Women: A Visual Dialogue of Her Narratives, a special exhibition dedicated to honouring female artists and fostering open dialogue. Through these works, we hope to amplify and delve deeper into the brilliance, strength, and complexity of women’s lived experiences, ultimately presenting a magnificent tapestry woven from diverse experiences, emotional depth, and multifaceted viewpoints.

Featuring works by Christine Ay Tjoe, Yayoi Kusama, Liang Yuanwei, Cheng Xinyi, Tracey Emin, Cui Jie and other pioneering figures, the exhibition brings together leading voices in contemporary art. Their backgrounds and creative journeys may differ, yet all share a common thread. Through employing the body, emotion and desire as an entry point, they transform the female figure from a historical object of the gaze into an active subject of expression and thereby redefine women’s place in the narrative of art history.

More than a progression of styles, feminist art history constitutes a transformative narrative that redefines ‘ways of seeing’ and ‘positioning of the subject.’ Accordingly, this exhibition is not structured by style, generation, or geography, but follows the threads of the body and lived experience, situating the artworks within an unfolding narrative field. Here, portraiture is no longer mere representation, but a dismantling of the power dynamics of looking and an assertion of the inward gaze. Abstract works, meanwhile, channel bodily perception and impulse, releasing the energy of emotions, desires, and traumas. Regardless of form, the core of each piece lies in the unleashing of female power. These artists turn authentic lived experiences into the bedrock of their creation, openly channeling emotions through their practice and keenly documenting their observations of the world. This creative endeavor is at once singular, personal, and conscious, yet possesses the power to resonate broadly.

Many female artists employ increasingly bold and unbridled painterly languages to respond to somatic perceptions and impulses, unlocking the energies of emotion, desire, and trauma. Christine Ay Tjoe’s 2012 work Layers of Transcendence, featured in this exhibition, embodies the sentiment of inner solitude and a yearning to find order amid chaos. Red, Ay Tjoe’s signature hue, dominates the composition. Intense layers of deep and light reds, flesh tones, and somber lines converge, flooding the canvas with a storm-like intensity that evokes the passionate flow of blood and flesh, charged with a uniquely feminine vital tension and sensitivity. She fuses the dry sharpness of oil pastels with the wet richness of oil paint, interweaving dense passages with deliberate moments of emptiness. In doing so, she achieves a precise equilibrium that allows the composition to flow freely and breathe naturally.

For Yayoi Kusama, the pumpkin functions as a personal portrayal, an alter ego, and a spiritual totem. The artist sees in the pumpkin a generous and unpretentious beauty. It grows wild in the earth, rough on the exterior yet warm at its core, serving as a metaphor for her own resilient vitality. From 1989 to 1990, the Center for International Contemporary Arts (CICA) in New York presented a major retrospective of Kusama’s work. The exhibition returned the artist, long marginalized from the centre of the art world, to public attention. Works from this period display precise handling and an upward-stretching, dynamic organic quality, with a masterful balance of color saturation and painterly texture. The work Pumpkin on view dates to 1990, representing a pivotal piece from this significant moment in Kusama’s career.

Chinese artist Liang Yuanwei's engagement with personal experience takes on a more Zen-like quality. She paints with intense restraint, in a manner approaching meditative practice, transforming patterns found in household textiles, wallpapers and curtains into quietly rhythmic canvases, probing the connections between material culture and personal memory. The exhibited work Through the Glasses was created in 2011, a period when Liang represented China at the 54th Venice Biennale and gained significant international attention, marking the zenith of this defining series.

Cheng Xinyi adopts a distinctly feminine perspective to portray masculinity, intimacy, and the subtle tensions inherent in psychological spaces. Coiffeur, the work on view, is representative of her early exploration into interpersonal dynamics. The scene is imbued with an ambiguous narrative atmosphere, while the act of shaving carries an undercurrent of danger and psychological tension. The sharpness of the scene, the ruggedness of the male figure, and the artist’s characteristic soft, powdery purple-pink hues form a striking contrast, imbuing the canvas with a dreamlike, ethereal, and gently melancholic poetry.

Tracey Emin’s works are similarly charged with profound spiritual intensity. Like a strange dream You Fucked me charts her evolution beyond the aggressive energy of her early YBA years, revealing a shift towards a deeply meditative and introspective sensibility. Against an expansive, milky-white field, delicate, trembling lines conjure lingering traces of longing and seclusion. The figure of a horse symbolizes primal, untamed force, while the striking red at the bottom acts as a psychic imprint, revealing both the cruelty and sincerity of desire. As Emin’s solo exhibition opens at Tate Modern in February 2026, we are delighted to present this work as one of her most vulnerable and courageous expressions.

Cui Jie’s work presents her signature reinterpretation of modernist architecture found in Chinese cities. By layering and rendering structures in transparent, geometric forms, she creates surreal spatial depth that echoes the futuristic visions common in China’s public architecture of the 1980s–1990s. Drawing from personal experience, she transforms buildings into portraits with distinct character. Her works are held in major global institutions including Centre Pompidou, the Pinault Collection, M+, the New Museum and West Bund Museum.

Celebrating Women: A Visual Dialogue of Her Narratives presents a profound and intimate dialogue with women artists. It is our sincere aspiration to bridge narratives, perspectives and visions across cultures through the language of art. Every brushstroke and every composition bears witness to their unique perception of the world, laying bare their inner landscapes with unreserved candour and profound intensity. We invite visitors to immerse themselves in these works, to witness how the artists interpret life and explore the world, and to discover echoes of their own experiences within these reflections.

Selected works in the exhibition are available through Christie’s Private Sales. At Christie’s, collecting transcends a single avenue. Christie’s Private Sales provide tailored and flexible service, for buying and selling fine art and objects outside of the auction calendar. Browse our Private Sales page to explore fine art, jewellery, handbags, watches and more, all ready to take home now, along with our buying and selling guides. Please feel free to contact us and tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll use our global network of specialists to find it for you.