“The lines and elements in my paintings are an extension of my body and its movements.”
— Xiyao Wang
Born in 1992 in Chengdu, Xiyao Wang is a Berlin-based female artist from China, who is recognised for her immersive, large format abstract paintings. Marking Wang’s auction debut, the ethereal and vivaciously dynamic Arabesque on Vert Menthe features her trademark gestural lines that populate her oeuvre. These lines are extensions of the artist’s bodily movements, evoking echoes of landscapes and dances that contain tremendous energy and emotion.
The artist in her studio
Image Courtesy of misa.art
Working across various media encompassing oil, acrylic, chalk, graphite and oil sticks, Wang reimagines Eastern culture and philosophy in the vein of Western aesthetics and technicality, a reinterpretation made possible via the conduit of her bodily movements. Movement, energy and limitless are the key words Wang uses to describe her work. Dancing across the monumental canvas of Arabesque on Vert Menthe are flamboyant lines that impart a tremendous sense of energy. Some are potently vibrant, reaching out on the pictorial space with their fierce presence, others emerge out of layers of transparent green haze flowing in the background, as if waves of water are surging forward and backward within the frame.
Wang’s background in Ballet, kickboxing, boxing, tango, and yoga is evident, as her canvases become visceral physicalisations of the emotions and energies that animate her body during the creative process. While working on a piece, be it hung on a wall or laid on the ground, the artist moves the canvas freely, adding another dimension of vitality to her work.
Growing up in the East and trained in both Eastern and Western painting traditions, Wang alchemises into her works her culture, trainings, life experiences, and the zeitgeist of our global era. Having studied in Germany with Werner Büttner, renowned for his distinct and thought-provoking painterly pieces and collages , as well as Anselm Reyle, an abstract artist whose oeuvre is closely associated with Modernism, Wang also looks to Cy Twombly, Günther Förg and Albert Oehlen as inspirations.
Though her work is tinted with the lyrical, hermetic sentiments and gestural vocabulary seen in Cy Twombly’s work, such as in Untitled from 1954, it is also equally flavoured by influences including ancient Chinese pictorial traditions, the Western art historical canon, electronic music, and a uniquely millennial and Gen Z lens rooted in an inclusive global vision. Wang’s paintings explore inner visions, feelings, and their relation to bodily perceptions, substantiated by her East-West biography.
The artist talks about her creative process
Video Courtesy of misa.artmarket
Following the steps of her artist father, Wang received her BA from the renowned Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, before emigrating to Germany to further her studies. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, Switzerland, France and China, with the latest solo exhibitions including The Crystalline Moon Palace at Galerie Perrotin, Paris (9 June – 30 July 2022), and the upcoming Xiyao Wang: The Endless Dream with Arndt Collection, Cape Schanck, Australia that opens on 10 December 2022 and runs through 24 February 2023.
Provenance
König Galerie, Berlin Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
Berlin, König Galerie - St. Agnes, MISA Discoveries, 9 - 19 September 2021
signed, titled and dated '"Arabesque en vert menthe" 2021 Wang Xiyao [in Pinyin and Chinese]' on the reverse acrylic, oil and oil stick on canvas 200 x 190 cm. (78 3/4 x 74 3/4 in.) Executed in 2021.