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InspirationArt & Culture

Brooklyn-based artist Dawei Wang explores alienation on moving to America

Shanghai-born, Brooklyn-based artist Dawei Wang makes work that heavily draws on both locations; delighting in observing details that perhaps many of us wouldn’t notice, let alone find inspiring.

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A solitary figure sits on a grey cylindrical object in a barren landscape with a dramatic pink and red sky, scattered grey rectangular forms floating throughout the composition

His earlier works, as such, often draw on the banal daily activities of life in Shanghai. When Wang moved to America, his works naturally took a rather different turn. Finding himself in a strange new world; he says he immediately felt like a "foreigner", retreating into himself, and becoming an increasingly introverted lifestyle as he "grappled with feelings of alienation in a new environment."

The people in the work Wang went on to make in America become blurred, odd, disquieting; human figures are "literally insecure in their occupation of physical space, reinforcing the tenuous quality of human existence."

Wang’s mixed media pieces use cool, muted colours, heightening that sense of observational unease with various tones of greys, blues, and greens in the background. Flashes of bright red and orange hint at the idea of a warning somehow; and serve to underscore Wang’s explorations of "unity and the tension between falsehood and reality, action and stillness, the physical and waking world."

White boat suspended against a gradient blue sky and water, evoking isolation and alienation in Dawei Wang's mixed media artwork
Ethereal figures in translucent blue sit isolated in deep green water beneath a grey hillside, conveying alienation and unease
Watercolour painting of a solitary figure standing in shallow turquoise water beneath dark cliffs, rendered in muted greens and blues with touches of warm tones in the sky
Two figures embrace on a dark shore as turbulent waves in shades of red, orange and green crash behind them under a hazy sky
Two blurred figures stand between dark vertical forms in Dawei Wang's mixed media work, with muted blues and greys punctuated by warm red and orange tones at the base
Dawei Wang's mixed-media artwork depicting solitary figures in an austere multi-level interior space with black rectangular panels and muted green and grey tones
Figures in bright clothing perform precarious actions across a surreal turquoise landscape with dark water and a cypress tree, rendered in muted greens and greys with red accents
A figure in an orange jacket and red hat lies across a vast green field beneath a pale sky in Dawei Wang's mixed media artwork
A solitary figure stands in a corridor with black walls and a pink floor, gazing up at a ceiling installation of colourful translucent spheres suspended by dark curved lines
Two figures stand on a misty shore holding hands, gazing towards a setting sun reflected in still water, rendered in warm terracotta and pale tones
A figure in a light blue shirt runs across a striking red landscape with birds, towards modernist buildings silhouetted against an orange sky, evoking alienation and displacement
A lone figure stands on a bright red tennis court against a muted turquoise landscape with distant mountains, surrounded by tall fencing and overgrown vegetation in the foreground
Bright red wall with weathered teal-blue corrugated metal panel featuring vertical streaks and a small green plant detail visible through the opening
Mixed media artwork by Dawei Wang depicting abstracted figures in blue and red tones standing before a desolate landscape with bare trees and an ominous sky
Two pale figures stand awkwardly against a background of horizontal lines, with muted green trees and a bold red section below, creating an unsettling sense of displacement
Pale figure standing on a red platform before a storefront window displaying bare branches and hanging colourful objects against deep blue striped backdrop
Bright pink and orange house with dark stormy mountains behind, teal hedges and muted landscape, a figure with a flag in the foreground by Dawei Wang
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