Painting the Unspoken: Female Christian Artists in Modern East Asia and Their Works

Building on Dana Robert’s call to center women in World Christianity studies, this paper argues that our understanding of their historical role remains incomplete without a visual turn. By examining Chinese Christian posters and Japanese kamishibai, this paper highlights how women addressed their gender identity and actively reshaped theological imagination as well as achieved conversions through the production of visual materials. The case of Charlotte Tippet in China reveals the importance of gendered intimacy with rural Chinese women in creating "visual archives" of their spiritual and social struggles and converting them. The example of Imai Yone in Japan represents women's agency of localizing theology, transforming the street performance of kamishibai into a religious pedagogical tool for Japanese children. Ultimately, these cases highlight the significance of visual sources in understanding Christian women in East Asia as active creators who profoundly formulated visual power for the church's vitality, absent from texts.