The subjectivity of experience and our ability as people to shift mindsets – similar to what occurs in the transition between dreamstates and waking life – is explored in the artists’ playful representational paintings. Through bold color blocks, strong use of line and an embrace of decorative patterning, the artists thread myth, memory and dream-like visions into scenes that form marked departures from everyday life. From still life compositions by Wang to Huang’s bold, playful feminine portraits, Waking Life offers the viewer the chance to explore adventures at the boundaries and borders of what they believe to be possible.

Polin Huang, Dad, I got a mixed girlfriend, 2023, Acrylic, glitter oil pastel, 60x72inch

Jingqi Wang, Close Match, 2023, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 48x48inch

Hinting around the edges of iconographies found in works by Marc Chagall and Dorothea Tanning, Jingqi Wang references Albert Camus’ Sisyphian notion of absurdity in surrealist-inspired fantasy paintings representing a melange of pattern, still life and reverie. Mounting a humorous yet, at times, sobering approach to contemporary reality, Wang plays with narration in compositional elements such as pattern and surface texture in works such as “Skirt Mountain” and “Ulysses” (above.)

Huang, meanwhile, embraces mixed media elements such as glitter, acrylic and oil pastel in her compositions presenting flat approaches to painting and portraiture. She plays with tropes entangled with social mores regarding female sexuality in her humorous yet incisive paintings. Utilizing techniques such as pastiche and kitsch, Huang’s utilization of a flat picture plane brings a sense of otherworldliness and fantasy to her informed compositions. Waking Life entices the viewer to embrace dreamscapes as a path to the absurd.

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