Wang Gongyi

Having already established herself as an artist in China, Wang Gongyi was in her fifties when she decided to move to the U.S. in 2001. A solo exhibition some years earlier had brought her to Oregon, a place that would eventually become her new home. It’s not hard to see how the moody landscapes of the Pacific Northwest might have appealed to the artist, whose work reflects an affinity for the natural world. Her ink paintings and watercolors evoke misty peaks, fields of tall grass, and rocky waterfalls, as much as they convey contemplation and pathos.

Grounded in her fine art training, Wang also reinterprets Chinese calligraphy, sometimes with a frenetic energy. She abstracts the classic art form into illegible scrawls, smudges, or blots, generating a new kind of language. Her work captures memory and tradition, and is imbued with the ephemeral nature of the everyday.