Yi-Wei Wang

Lives and works in Angers, France

Artist statement

Since emerging from an unprecedented pandemic where the movement of the body has been largely restricted to a confined space, experiencing painting through our bodies and their movement in space is becoming a post-COVID phenomenon, as we are becoming more and more aware of the presence of our bodies and how it interacts with the space surrounding it. My performative painting practice explores the interactions between the body movement and the kinesthetic brushstroke to compose a pictorial narrative within an architectural and scenic space. I search to extend the fluidity, architectural structure and kinesthetics of calligraphic brushstrokes to the body moving in an architectural and scenic space. I use intuitive and spontaneous gestures to create a gestural narrative, inspired largely by running script and chirashi-gaki calligraphy, graffiti, cave paintings, dance improvisation, action painting and gestural abstraction. Why is there a need for a painting to be presented within the boundaries of a frame? Both the Albertian window and the character for picture 圖 in traditional Chinese indicate that a picture is inside a frame, yet to the artists who created the Nasca lines, they may find it strange. I am interested in a type of painting that can allow the viewer to wander throughout the space, like the way our eyes wander when we are walking in a forest. My interest in the picture frame and performative painting has led me to take a more in depth look at how the Italian...

Artwork