Research praxis in drawing: The visible and the invisible ‘Chineseness’ – an exploration through Chinese language and the matriarchal writing script, nüshu

Drawing is the core of my practice. While drawing may have appeared ‘secondary’ in the western fine arts tradition, its ‘marginal’ status intrigues me. To draw through appropriating some gendered Chinese characters and a dying ‘secret’ matriarchal script nüshu, my practice is deliberate and exploratory. Working with the symbolic Chinese signs into undefined graphs and representations, I have attempted to break away from the original registrations; employing nüshu, a set of inventive writing script practiced by some women as opposed to the official language, I have examined possibilities of articulating outside the dominant culture and language of man. My ‘Chineseness’ may manifestly be ‘visible’, its ‘invisibility’ yet lies beyond the visible. It is through acts of repeated drawing and its extended manifestations that the body of work is evolving and developing. My exploration through language has led me realize that drawing, being a practice, also acts as a strategy to ‘uncover’ something that are ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’.