Justine Kong Sing, an Australian artist of Chinese descent, arrived in Edwardian London and felt the stark contrast to her experiences in Australia, where she often faced discrimination. Despite initial marginalization, she gained recognition for her watercolour-on-ivory miniatures, particularly her self-portrait titled 'Me'. Her work is featured in the exhibition 'Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890-1940', which aims to highlight overlooked female artists. Curator Elle Freak emphasizes the importance of uncovering artists like Kong Sing who have remained in the shadows of art history due to their race and gender.
But many, like Kong Sing, are being salvaged from obscurity. That's been the challenge of the whole project, Freak says.
In the colonies, where foreigners are treated differently, an Oriental suffers keenly the mortification of being stared at, and often assaulted, because of his color!
Basing herself in Chelsea, her specialty was watercolour-on-ivory miniature portraits, painting London Society beauties and a Chinese minister's wife.
Kong Sing's known body of work is tiny in almost every sense, and for the Art Gallery of South Australia curator Elle Freak, she remains an enigma.
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