CONTEMPORARY FIGURATIVE ARTIST BASED IN LONDON
ARTIST BIO
Yin Wang is a contemporary artist born in Nanjing, China. She has lived in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and she is currently based in London.
She primarily creates paintings, and occasionally ventures into sculpture and printmaking. Her artwork explores various aspects of her identity, familial relationships, her connection to her homeland, and her perspective on China from the outside. Furthermore, she imbues her work with significant values, such as the importance of family and love.
Yin has just finished studying for a BA in Fine Art at the Art Academy London, and her work was recently exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exhibition 2024.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As an artist of the Chinese diaspora, my work serves as a conduit to maintain a profound connection to my cultural roots. Primarily focused on painting with occasional forays into sculpture and printmaking, I draw inspiration from the ordinary yet complex aspects of Chinese people’s lives, Chinese social media, mythologies and literature, as well as my nostalgic memories. Through my art, I explore themes of self, family, and homeland from various perspectives, such as personal experiences, cultural influences, historical contexts, language and communication, and societal norms, leading me on a journey of self-discovery and peeling back the layers of familial ties against the backdrop of contemporary China's social landscape.
More specifically, I strive to underscore the fundamental values of love and family while sparking meaningful conversations about pressing social issues and evolving norms in Chinese society. People are the eternal subjects of my work, and my art process is all about empathy for my subjects. By offering a perspective on Chinese society from the outside, my art evokes a nuanced and thoughtful response from viewers across diverse communities and social groups, inviting them into a realm that is at once unfamiliar yet resonant, to explore the rich tapestry of Chinese heritage and contemporary realities from a perspective that increases understandings and transcends stereotypes and clichés.
My choices of colour and materials, as well as the way I manipulate paint or other materials, are influenced by Chinese traditional art, especially ink painting, calligraphy, architecture, and folk art, reflecting my cultural heritage. This influence is manifested in the use of expressive brush work, symbolism, monochrome, dripping, and the play of scales in my work. Through the blending of traditional artistic elements with contemporary themes and popular Western art mediums like oil, I aim to create a distinctive approach that fosters an aesthetic and cultural exchange between East and West.
ARTIST CV
Education
2020 – 2021 Art Academy London – Certificate Fine Art
2005 – 2008 Donghua University (Shanghai, China) – MA Artistic Design (Fashion)
2001 – 2005 Donghua University (Shanghai, China) – BA Artistic Design (Fashion)
Awards
Royal Society of British Artists Annual Exibition- Winsor & Newton Painting Award, Winner
Art Academy London- Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition prize, Winner
Art Academy London- Autumn Peer Prize, Second Place
Art Academy London- Principal’s Prize, Winner
Group Shows
Celebrating Cultural Diversity, Cass Art Kingston
BA Fine Art Degree Show, Art Academy London
Contemporary Portraiture Degree Show, Art Academy London
2022
ALTERA Group Exhibition, Nolia's Gallery , London
2021
Certificate Grad Show, Art Academy London
Press
a-n Degree Shows Guide/2024, p30
https://stcuthbertsmill.blogspot.com/2024/05/artist-interview-yin-wang.html
https://stcuthbertsmill.blogspot.com
Broadcast
Sky Portrait Artist of the Year S10 E6 (Heat 5) participant
Selected Commissions
Portrait of a Uyghur Family in London, Ablikim and Mukaddes’s Private Collection
2021- Now Through her ongoing project “50 Faces Made With Love”, Yin has created portraits for private collections in the UK, Europe and China