Image courtesy of the artist.
"As a Chinese artist who studies abroad, I always think about the idea of cultural displacement and how my identity transforms within a foreign context. This changing aspect of my personal narrative inspires me to search for a way of making that reflects personal belief but is also flexible enough to record my transformation. Therefore, I collect my fragmented, casual thoughts and collage them into my works both subject-matter–wise and material-wise. I add, remove, and paint over shapes frequently in response to what I have already on my canvas, then let what I have done lead me to the next stage of my work. The cohesiveness of the narratives, or the social and cultural symbolism of painted forms, is not the main emphasis in my works. The stories in my works are open-ended. My works reflect a compound of my diverse, changing internal exploration as well as invite viewers’ own reflections, through not only the final visual outcomes, but also the time and process of making."
—— Jojo Wang
If I Know What This Is I Would Already Have Another Title, 2019,
Oil, Crayon, and Paper on Canvas, 48" × 36"
AS: Please tell us a little about yourself.
JW: I was born and raised in Southern China. The art education system in China emphasizes techniques heavily, and I was mostly trained in that way before I came to SAIC. This experience enabled me to paint a wide range of subjects, but it also somehow limited the way I see things. Yet the school exposed me to diverse art mediums and all the possibilities that I haven’t thought about before. The experiences of making art in two cultures are both so very valuable that they together helped me found out what exactly I was interested in.
Apple and Orange, 2019,
Oil and Crayon on Canvas, 48" × 35"
AS: Can you tell us about your work?
JW: My works are little worlds that I invented. As human beings, we all sometimes have weird thoughts or narratives that only lives in our imagination. They are essentially “meaningless”, but I enjoy so much all the whimsicalness and possibilities that those stories provoke. It’s been always amazing to me that one’s random, subconscious ideas can actually tell a lot about this person. So I make my daily ideas into artworks. I see romance, nature, and spiritual encounters in my works. I feel these worlds start to develop by themselves when they become physical, and I am the executor.
Besides the paint, I use found objects or cheap crafting materials on my paintings. Putting them together in my works are like one puzzle for a day, and I enjoy how physical these materials can be. They emphasized the physicality of my works as objects while creating open-ended stories that can still be read in so many different ways.
My Paint Splits, 2019
Oil, Crayon, Charcoal and Paper on Wood Panel, 48" × 48"
AS: Could you please talk about how does your experience influenced your work/idea/concept?
JW: As a cross-culture learner, I always face multiple resources of information. A culture shapes one’s values and beliefs, yet what one finds truth in his place might be proved wrong in another context. Therefore, I personally always find it hard to make a statement or express a solid attitude in my works, because from my perspective everything outside of me is very fluid, and I consume them as incohesive fragments. So I turn to myself and started to explore the stories in my subconsciousness, from which I find out what joins all the conflicts. Fragments stay as fragments in my works. I find those open-ended, nonsense stories a best metaphor of all my unresolved ambivalence.
Can You See Me?, 2019
Oil, Cotton Thread, Crafting Paper, Mirror Sticker, and Felting on Canvas, 48" × 42"
AS: Does your work comment on social or political issues?
JW: I will say I do not intentionally comment on social or political topics. From my perspective, all artworks are somehow related to social or political issues, because artists essentially live under the influences of these things and the impacts will show up in their works (sometimes it’s just not obvious). But I do not push my works toward that direction.
Locomotive， 2020
Woolfelt and Oil on Canvas， 37“ × 43”
AS: What artists are you currently looking at or inspired by? And why?
JW: I am inspired by Laura Owens, Joan Brown, Milton Avery, Louise Bourgeois, Amy Silman, Hilma af Klint, and the Hairy Who. I like the wide range of subjects and all those possibilities in Laura Owens’ works. The color and ways of handling paint in Milton Avery and Joan Brown’s works also inspire me, and I like how their subject matters are so casual but the works themselves are still very powerful. Louise Bourgeois is famous for her spider sculpture, but I personally really enjoy her drawings and prints. I love the gestures and simplicity in her works on paper.
Injection Hurts, 2019
Mixed Medium on Paper, 30" × 40"
AS: What is your favorite art material and why?
JW: My No.1 is oil paint. I like how flexible this material can be. Thin v.s. thick, matte
v.s. gloss…there are just so much to explore.
Image courtesy of the artist.
Other materials that I really love are crayons and wool felt. Crayons work very well with oil paint while introducing very different textures and gestures into my works. Wool felt has the same feature, but it’s also dimensional. One of my professors described my paintings with wool felt as “images on the wall trying to reach out and give you a handshake.” I think this is exactly what it makes me feel.
“I use the crayon for the blue shadow of the skinny legs. It pushes paint around and creates special textures.”
Image courtesy of the artist.
“A detailed photo of my painting with felt and sculpture wire. It reaches out into space.”
Image courtesy of the artist.
AS: How's your artist's journey happened? How did you land on painting?
JW: I started painting and drawing while in primary school, so it has always been a big part of my interest. The school exposed me to a lot of different mediums, which I really appreciate, but I feel like painting is like my mental home that I know I can always return to while also discovering new things.
Me and my friends, we once talked about painting as a medium that provides a wide range of fidelity. Unlike a film, which you need to spend time watching the whole thing to get a full idea, paintings can be consumed in just one glance or you choose to stare at it for two hours. Depends on how much time you want to spend, you will be rewarded with different things, and painting could unfold in diverse speeds. I like how paintings work in that way.
Curtain, 2020
Woolfelt, and Oil on Canvas, 40" × 30"
Jojo's Studio
Image courtesy of the artist.
AS: Did you have work in the Spring 2020 Undergraduate Exhibition? Would you like to share it with us here?
JW: I did my BFA show last year so I’m not in the show this semester. But I can share a
photo of me with my paintings in the Undergraduate Exhibition last fall.
Image courtesy of the artist.
(This is a text-based interview, and the content has been lightly edited.)
More marvelous works are shown on:
Rainy Day, 2019
Mixed Medium on Paper, 26" × 20"
Self-portrait, 2020
Woolfelt, Cotton Thread, Glitter, Nails, and Acrylic on Foam, 10.5" × 8" × 4"
Glare, 2020
Woolfelt, Mirror Sticker, Cotton Thread, Oil on Canvas, 19" × 19"
Forest Concert, 2020
Woolfelt and Oil on Canvas, 30" × 40"