Kelly Wang’s work examines and redefines Asian-American identity and considers the reality of being a diasporic artist. Her visual and conceptual practice is rooted in personal experience, Chinese art history, and material experimentation. She earned an MA in Art History from Columbia University and a BA in Art History from CUNY Hunter College. Kelly has been experimenting with calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting practices and techniques since 2010 while developing her own artistic practice. She has lectured about Chinese art and Western abstract painting at CUNY Hunter College.
A multidisciplinary artist, Wang combines contemporary and pre-modern materials integrating collage, mixed media, painting, sculpture, found objects, and installation. Her work explores the tension between dimensions; hard, defined edges and soft organic forms; concrete physical environments and immaterial inherited realms. Wang's unconventional, pioneering techniques push the boundaries of what "ink art" can be. Five of her works were acquired by Princeton University Art Museum, where she had a solo exhibition entitled Between Heartlands: Kelly Wang at Princeton's gallery project space, Art@Bainbridge, in 2022. She has exhibited at the Asia Society Houston in 2023 and China Institute New York in 2024, 2025 to 2026. Her work has also been collected by the Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Nelson Atkins Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, Washington & Lee University Art Museum, and Harvard Art Museums.
Her work has also been collected by the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge; Asian Art Museum San Francisco; Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton; and Washington & Lee University Art Museum, Lexington, USA.
BIOGRAPHY
1992 Born in New York, USA, granddaughter of the distinguished collector Wang Nanping (1924–1985)
2010 Learned the techniques of traditional Chinese paintings from Chen Ruikang (1935–), a student of Pu Ru
2011-2014 Bachelors in Arts (Art History), Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, USA
2014-2016 Masters in Arts (Art History with a focus on Chinese Paintings), Columbia University, New York, USA
2023 Exhibited in Asia for the first time
Present Lives and works in New York, USA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023
2022
2021
2020
2018
2017
2016
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025-2026
2025
2024
2019-2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
