Shiwen Wang: “The river returns nothing of what it takes”
Shiwen Wang, Excavate the Wind, 2024. Oil on linen, 47 1/2 x 82 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery.
Shiwen Wang’s painting is a refusal of clarity. Each work oscillates between the total collapse of formal and perspectival hierarchy and the unrestrained instantiation of a singular idea, often toying with the margins of representation. The scenography of Wang’s painting is often undecided, gesturing toward primordial dramatics of the birth of sentient beings and cultural imaginaries of post-apocalyptic geography at the same time, due to the artist’s encyclopedic citation and appropriation of medieval and Renaissance painting, botanical and architectural illustration, and the history of modernist abstraction. The emotional and interpretive ambiguity is further compounded by Wang’s material investment in the surface of each painting, creating disorderly and differentially textured zones and layers that obscure and conceal implied organic forms. As the recognizable patterns and forms mutate into a meandering web of spectral traces and lines of flight bordering the ornamental, an eschatological narrative concerning the limit of human intelligence, understanding, and adaptation arises.
For her first solo show at Michael Kohn Gallery, The river returns nothing of what it takes, Wang stretches her painterly desires to expose the inner workings of worlds unburdened from human control into deep time and the far future. For instance, in both Excavate the Wind (2024) and Mud, Not Blood (2024), the microscopic scene of ruins and hybridity becomes a grand struggle between entropic decay and overgrowth brought forth by technologies of control once the viewer zooms out, therefore transcending individual fictions of history and futurity and becoming a universalist commentary on life, death, and time. On the occasion of The river returns nothing of what it takes, the artist’s first solo show in the United States, Qingyuan Deng spoke with Wang about the material process and conceptual parameters of her paintings.
Installation view of Shiwen Wang:The river returns nothing of what it takes. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery.
Qingyuan Deng: I wanted to start with your working with and updating the conventions of landscape painting. Can you tell me a bit more about how you revisit ideas of landscape, both Chinese and Western?
Shiwen Wang: I don’t consider my work to inherit the main characteristics of landscape painting, as space, depth, and light are usually the primary concerns in landscapes. Instead, what I focus on in my painting is closer to the idea of still life. Most of the time, I start with a single subject and focus closely on depicting its details and shape, while also emphasizing the symbolic meaning surrounding it. I often think about how colors, textures, and shapes connect with human emotions and perceptions, and I aim to use these elements to create the intended atmosphere in my work. However, there are also aspects of my work that diverge from traditional still-life painting. Based on each element, I associate and imagine a story to create the rest of the composition. This makes it an uncertain and dynamic process; the complete picture and the story change over time, which, in this sense, is quite far from being “still.”
QD: The way you construct your compositions intentionally exposes traces of time. Can you talk more about your durational approach to painting?
SW: Yes, certainly. I spend a lot of time with most of my paintings. My approach to painting is durational because I build my compositions in layers over time, each layer capturing a moment, a memory, or an impression. For me, when an event occurs, it leaves traces in space that are more than just clues for reconstructing reality—they reveal a beauty born from the layering of time. This beauty doesn’t come from the original appearance of the event, but from the simultaneous presence of past, present, and future coexisting in the same space, creating a “glitch-like” effect that is both blurred and unique. This experience is similar to how memory works. We are, in fact, discovering the beauty of intertwined time as we look back.
Shiwen Wang, Leaves and cocoons, 2024. Oil on linen, 59 1/4 x 67 in. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery.
QD: The idea of the spiritual also feels important to your paintings. Do you want to talk about how you think about the idea of decay in your painting, especially motifs of vanities and memento mori?
SW: I am just fascinated by the idea of decaying. Decay carries a sense of urgency and anxiety; it’s a reminder of the inevitable passage of time and the fragile nature of all things. This tension between attraction and repulsion, between preservation and surrender, creates a profound emotional resonance for me. So, decay becomes not only a visual texture but an emotional layer.
QD: I am interested in how you combine the artificial and the natural. Do you want to talk more about how your painting reflects posthuman or more-than-human ecologies?
SW: The main parts of my compositions are usually plants or organisms from nature, and then, at some point, I like to place outlines referenced from artificial objects next to things or elements that belong to nature. This idea started organically. Artificial things embody ideals, novelty, and control, and they are not common in the natural. Also, the artificial is linked to cultures and values. I do find profound beauty in some of the artificials. I’ve noticed that my awareness of the relationship between humans and nature corresponds with how this relationship is portrayed in my work. This wasn’t intentional from the start, but it’s something I observed after creating many pieces. I once read The Mushroom at the End of the World, and perhaps it subtly shaped my understanding of the human-nature relationship.
Installation view of Shiwen Wang:The river returns nothing of what it takes. Courtesy of the artist and Michael Kohn Gallery.
QD: Finally, I am also very interested in how you use unconventional materials. Can you tell me a bit more about how you deploy organic materials?
SW: I occasionally use egg tempera in my work, which is created by combining egg yolk with pigments. It was a common painting material in the past. Sometimes, I use egg tempera for the first layer and then continue with oil paint, adding details with egg tempera over parts of the oil painting. I can see that some of the materials come directly from nature, and this technique also calls back to art history, giving a more grounded, down-to-earth feeling.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
