Suling Wang

Suling Wang was born and grew up in rural Taiwan. She moved to London in 1993, studied fine art at Central St. Martins, before completing a master's degree in painting at the Royal College of Art in 1999. The artist lives and works in London, England.

Looking at Suling Wang’s paintings, we enter imaginary, staged settings. The dancing forms impart depth and create a fluid, almost calligraphic rhythm in the paintings. The sweeping strokes of color flow in and out of the visual field, superimposed on others, suggesting trees, stems, crags overhangs, and submerged islands. Some meticulously detailed treasures, such as a palm tree, a landscape or flying birds are secreted in the work.

The geography of Taiwan is a recurring theme in Suling Wang’s paintings and her depictions are influenced by oral traditions and Daoist philosophy she experienced as a child in rural upbringing. The artist equates the dynamism of her work with forces of change that began with the industrialization of her native country. Notions of permanence, impermanence, flux and transformation in nature are the central preoccupations of Suling Wang's work.

Suling Wang’s layers of Eastern and Western imagery and techniques explore her sense of uncertainty relating to her identity within several cultures. Thus, by employing sweeping strokes of color, shattering forms, battalions of marks, drips and figurative elements, Suling Wang creates paintings that refer to several cultures and suggest mistrust of any single version of events.