Wang Zifan

Wang Zifan

Wang Zifan was born in 1997 in Sichuan, China.

Wang has been working in oil painting for six years, during which she obtained BFA and MFA degrees. Her artworks actively reflect on how individuals relate to other individuals as well as to groups, while also focusing on the conflict and coexistence of individuals, groups in spaces, whilst focusing on the importance of spatial relations in individual and collective experience.

Education

Painting BFA, VCU ARTS, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, the United States

Painting MFA, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Exhibitions

2022, MFA Thesis Exhibition (Solo), Temple Gallery , Rome, Italy.

2019, BFA Thesis Exhibition, VCU ARTS, Richmond, Virginia.

Curating

2022, MFA Thesis Exhibition (Solo + Group), Temple Gallery, Temple University, Rome, Italy

2022, BFA Group Exhibition, Temple Gallery, Temple University, Rome, Italy

2021, BFA Senior Exhibtion, Temple Gallery, Temple University, Rome, Italy

2021, Hide and Seek, Temple Gallery, Temple University, Rome, Italy

2019, BFA Thesis Exhibtion, VCU ARTS, Richmond, Virginia

Artist Statement

The discussion on individual psychologicy and its connection with psychology space and the physical world are important to the past two years of my practice. I am trying to figure out the existence of imagery in connection with unconscious psychological motivations, trying to figure how imagery appears from this connection in a feedback loop with the physical world.

The inspiration of catching unconscious imagery comes from a desire for talking and expressing after a long time of personal isolation. This isolation has not only been spatial but also cultural. In the past two years, I lived in China and Italy and these two countries both made me feel out of place. 

In the silent COVID years in China, my practice was stopped due to reasons including miscommunication as well as space limits and time difference. My mind was isolated. But when I went to Italy and participated in studio art again, the cultural differences and extremly unknown surroudings also made me feel that I couldn’t locate myself. 

The constant pains of loss and isolation produced a desire for shouting and reconstructing a connection to my surroundings, especially at the moment when I had strong and uncontrollable psychologial impulses, so that I found myself able to capture these strongest impulses in paint. 

I allowed myself to pour out all my emotions, to expose how I had come undone, as the unpredicaticable brushstrokes occurred upon the painted surface. The whole process was illogical and natrually directed by my body, giving the paintings a sense of being free and relaxed. At the same time, I accepted and used the natural textures of the painting materials, such as the wrinkles on the canvas and the damaged brushes. These material features were involved as parts of the paintings and provided an additional layer  of documentation to the action of art creation.

Artworks