Weining Wang

Artist’s Statement

Occasionally, it is difficult for me to express some of my ideas in writing. Therefore, I decided to use painting and making sculptures to express my thoughts. As I mentioned in my prose submission, “When I was a young boy, I was in poor health, and not surprisingly, it was very difficult for me to attend my school on time. In order to improve my health, my grandfather took me to many training courses. I heard a lot of stories about having Cerebral Palsy and being Autistic.” My grandfather took care of me. These abstract artworks are different versions of “talented boys.” For example, I was the winner of the Beloit College spiritual Art Contest and designed my personal art show (at Beloit College’s downtown ABBA gallery), “The Dialogue Between a Talented Artist and a Crazy Chef.” The paintings and sculptures in that show focused on Chinese traditional culture and abstract art. I tried to put these different art styles together and create a new art style. Ever since my childhood, I dreamt of the rich history of ancient Chinese streets called hutong. I feel like the memories of these streets are in my blood and soul. The hutong streets are lined with famous Sichuan restaurants in Beijing. My grandfather taught me a love for traditional foods. All this time spent on these streets and eating with my family have become the source material for my artwork. (I mix many colorful dishes together.)

Descriptions: My work is abstract. Let it speak for itself. For me, abstract art is a dialogue between the material and my thoughts. Working in abstraction is about rule-breaking, emotion, and power that cannot be measured. I wrote a fiction about a “talented boy.” I want to create a “special performance” without words, in which literary work or memory is translated through images, symbols, and movement.

Door

"Door," 19 inches × 16 inches, watercolor on canvas.
“Door,” 19 inches × 16 inches, watercolor on canvas.

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Picture

"Picture,"  19 inches × 16 inches, watercolor on canvas.
“Picture,”  19 inches × 16 inches, watercolor on canvas.

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Image 1

"Image 1,"  38 inches × 22 inches, watercolor on paper.
“Image 1,”  38 inches × 22 inches, watercolor on paper.

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Image 3

"Image 3," 38 inches × 22 inches, watercolor on paper.
“Image 3,” 38 inches × 22 inches, watercolor on paper.

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About the Artist

Weining Wang is a Senior student at Beloit College, WI, where he is majoring in interdisciplinary studies, East Asian Studies. He submitted his Beijing flavor fiction, “The Old Snack Shop,” for publication to the journal The Sucarnochee Review, a famous undergraduate publication by the University of West Alabama. He was informed that it was being published and printed this year (2021). He translated eight poems from the Tang dynasty and published them in the Equinox, a journal of contemporary literature at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His artworks, “Nose_Paper” and “Star_Canvas,” have also been selected for publication in this year’s issue of the Equinox. His Chinese-style artworks, “Fire and Ocean,” “Black and White,” and “Great wall,” have also been accepted for publication in this year’s edition of Long River Review, an annual literary journal of art and literature staffed by undergraduates at the University of Connecticut.

Read Weining Wang’s fiction, “Head” and “A Talented Boy,” in this issue of Wordgathering.