Completed just in time for International ArtExpo, Soaring arrived in Las Vegas with the oil paint still glistening wet. Jia explains that when she traveled in Southern Xinjiang Province in the early 1980s and had to flee an Islamic uprising late in the year, she found refuge high in the Pamir mountains among the Tajiks of Tashkurgan, where the Kunlun, Kara Kunlun, Hindukush and Tian Shan mountains come together, at the borders with Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kashmir. The men and women she met there had never seen a Han Chinese woman before in their lives, and she was invited to every wedding in town. The residents trace their ancestry to the eagle, and their dances recall the bird's graceful movements on the air. This is an image Jia has wanted to paint for nearly thirty years, and we think it was worth the wait. Here are two images of the work in progress:
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