WHEN you're a Chinese-born 70-something artist living in Los Angeles, you've lived through so much and needn't shy away from painting bright red female genitalia. Xiao Huixiang, the 74-year-old Los Angeles-based artist, believes that female private parts can be feminist subjects.

Her series of 20 female nudes, all painted in 2005, are part of her one-person show at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute. The exhibit includes 40 drawings done in Paris in 2002 and 16 sketches from China in the 1960s.

Xiao frequently uses strong colors to depict distorted and exaggerated female nudes, who appear to be masturbating. She calls these works "feminist paintings."

"We cannot look at women's private parts merely from the perspective of sex," said Xiao, who is currently a visiting artist at Shenzhen Fine Art Institute. "These private parts are the medium I chose to express my view of feminism, which is very popular in the United States," she said.

Xiao said her paintings expressed her insight into the lives of sexually frigid women.

"Masturbation is a sensitive topic Chinese people have avoided talking about in public," Xiao said. "But it is no longer a taboo subject for a painter of my age to explore."

In Chinese art circles, Xiao has been known for her courage to experiment with new subjects.

Born in Changsha, Hunan Province, Xiao graduated from the Central Academy of Art in Beijing in 1958. In 1988, she moved to the United States and settled in Los Angels.

Xiao achieved both recognition and notoriety in the early 1980s with her large mural "The Spring of Science" at the Beijing Capital International Airport.

She boldly employed female nudes and abstract symbols to express her expectation of an open, dynamic and science-driven China. When first displayed, the work caused major controversy in the country's stagnant and conservative art circles.

The current show's line drawings of "Paris Beauties" were selected from several hundred drawings Xiao made in 2002. She asked strangers on the streets of Paris to pose for three-minute drawings. She said: "I love drawing black people, not only because they are more open and willing to act as my temporary models, but more importantly, because they usually have a combination of primitive and modern beauty with big and thick lips and clear-cut, strong profiles."

Xiao is planning to publish a collection of these drawings, titled "Paris Beauties," in the near future as a companion volume to her "American Beauties," published in China in 1999.

Her early sketches, just discovered last month, are also on display. The 16 sketches were selected from more than 1,000 the artist made in the countryside of Hunan Province in the 1960s.

After many years of living abroad, Xiao had forgotten about the sketches, but one of her relatives in Changsha accidentally discovered them in mid-June in an old apartment where Xiao once lived.

The sketches, most depicting rural figures and scenes from daily life, bear witness not only to the country's dramatic social changes but to the artist's long and far-ranging career.

Editor: Wing