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©2024 luluwangstudio
Artist statement
My artistic practice is a quest for balance, embracing strength and fragility while celebrating the inherent imperfections. Inspired by the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi and fueled by a fascination with post-humanism, my work connects the past with the future within the tapestry of the human experience.
My creative expression finds its home in various visual mediums, including drawing, 3D-printed sculptures and installations, and live performances. I use materials such as Polylactic acid (PLA), metal, pearls, and more. My drawings serve as tangible mapping of transient moments, capturing the essence of presence within absence. My ideas are often translated on paper with pastels, markers, pencils, and acrylic spray. The shiny surface washes off the details of the body shape, which responds to nature and the universe.
The physical works often evolve into live performance pieces, where movement intertwines with choreography, music, new technologies, and collaborations with fashion. This artistic journey, rooted in my experience of navigating cultural dislocation, having journeyed from my hometown in Shanghai to immerse myself in a new cultural landscape in the Western world, becomes a testament to resilience amidst cultural flux.
Disassembly and reassembly are the core of my creative process, which embraces the futuristic aesthetic. This symbolises the journey of identity merging amidst the turmoil of cultural assimilation. This metamorphosis, which I refer to as the "Human Puzzle," encapsulates the transformative process of reshaping the familiar into alien and inviting audiences to find their truth within the ever-shifting shapes.
My work explores how we use body language to express emotions and interact in relationships. I find it fascinating to take the physical human form and bring it into a digital context, effectively bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds. In my process, the shapes I use always originate from real, live bodies - they're not digitally fabricated or downloaded from pre-made models. I capture these shapes, each infused with motion and intention, and adapt them using digital software. This is the playful part of my process, where I create unconventional and surreal forms - bodies morphing together, interacting in unexpected ways, or even transforming into elements of landscapes. The results are shapes that defy conventional logic and challenge visual norms. This approach allows me to create connections and interactions that are impossible in the real world. In reality, there are boundaries between our bodies - we can't physically merge into another person. However, in the digital space, this merging becomes possible, allowing for a poetic and performative exploration of human connection that defies physical limitations. It’s never one way or another, I enjoy space travel back and forth in different dimensions - it’s space travel to me. I'm particularly intrigued by how these digital reinterpretations of human forms can evolve into something abstract, alien, and unconventional - shapes that don’t exist within our usual understanding of reality. This blending of the impossible and the real, the logical and the abstract is at the heart of my work.