style="text-transform: uppercase;">Kota Kinabalu: The Sabah Art Gallery will continue its commitment to the promotion of art by women.Giving the assurance, its Curator and Manager, Jennifer P. Linggi said the ongoing 8th Sabah Women Artists Exhibition, featuring 113 artworks by 40 artists, is proof of the gallery's commitment.

She said this eagerly awaited annual exhibition is also the "fruit" of the Gallery's efforts to improve the apparent under-representation of women artists.

"I am indebted to the women artists here for their active participation in this unique exhibition. Both emerging and established artists have come together to delight the public with subjects ranging from portraiture to landscape, and medium-ranging from Chinese ink to acrylic on porcelain.

"I am also encouraged by the rising number of women artists in Sabah. Thank you and congratulations to the artists involved," she said when contacted.

The exhibition coincides with the State-level Women's Day celebration and will continue until October 16.

From Linggi's observation, although female artists have been involved in making art throughout history, their work, unfortunately, has often not been as well acknowledged as that of men.

She noted that women artists still face challenges due to gender biases in the mainstream fine art world.

"While the statistics reveal that women artists are still outnumbered by their male counterparts, there is at least an improvement on the situation," she said.

Meanwhile, the General Manager of Sabah Cultural Board, Datuk Rosmadi Datu Sulai said the Board was pleased to be part of the Sabah Art Gallery's continuous effort to redress the under-representation of women artists in Sabah as well as the outside world.

He viewed that the continued imbalance of gender representation within the arts is an issue all too often ignored.

"Therefore this exhibition is an important step towards helping raise the status of women artists, in particular those in Sabah allowing women to showcase their masterpieces in this annual exhibition," he said.