Works — Angela Wei

My practice explores visual codes across different genres through an imaginative approach to image-making. At the heart of my practice is storytelling, of both individual and universal experiences. Some of the themes I explore include loss of identity in an alienating world, sinister effects of technological abuse, and struggle for self-actualization. Each piece straddles the boundary between the real and the imaginary, by either subverting our expectations of conventional narratives or by inserting insidious meanings into unexpected moments. Like children’s fables such as Grimms’ fairy tales, disruptive messages are concealed within seemingly innocuous imagery, cuteness being a defense mechanism against harder-to-digest realities. The large-scale format of the paintings are aimed at creating an immersive experience, where the viewer might feel enveloped within these fantastical worlds.

Each narrative depicted is a portal to a hallucinatory world of its own internal logic, dimensions, and time flow that are simultaneously otherworldly yet rooted in my own identity. In particular, I draw upon esthetic techniques inspired by Chinese scroll paintings, Japanese pop art, and Renaissance technical precision. The mixture of influences is a reflection of my hybrid identity, growing up Chinese Canadian. While I struggled to reconcile my Eastern background with my Western upbringing, my paintings offer a solution against that rigid binary by uniting disparate visual codes of both cultures; for instance, figures may possess gestural similarities to Roman goddesses yet are rendered in vibrant and flat colors that are reminiscent of Japanese woodblock prints.