SAN MAO
Spray paint on exterior wall
8 x 8'
Taichung, Taiwan
December 2019
8 x 8'
Taichung, Taiwan
December 2019
A writer and translator who published over a dozen works of essays and poetry, Chen Mao-ping 陳懋平 adopted the pen name San Mao 三毛 from the iconic wandering orphan of Zhang Leping's comic art. She was also known as Echo, or Echo Chan. Born in Chongqing during World War II, San Mao's family moved to Nanjing, and later Taiwan shortly before the Communist revolutionaries emerged victorious in 1949. Though she was drawn to literature and read voraciously, she resisted the strict education system and social conventions in Taiwan. Beginning in 1967, San Mao journeyed to Spain, Germany, and the US, studying philosophy, languages, and literature. In Madrid, she met her husband, José María Quero, and together they travelled to the Spanish Sahara and lived among the Sahrawi people for several years. Her seminal collection, "Stories of the Sahara," drew on these experiences, and her prose and poetry inspired a generation of women throughout Asia by providing a window to the political and social conditions of different regions of the world and a personal account of life beyond the conventional norms for women of the time.
This painting is located at the Qianyue Building, No. 113 Luchuan West Street, Taichung, the headquarters of Escape Plan X.
