Wang, Kelly

1992

New York , USA

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 NY in 2024 and 2025. Her work has also been collected by the Asian Art Museum San Francisco, Nelson Atkins Museum, Smith College Museum of Art, and Washington & Lee University Art Museum.

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

Solo Exhibition, SCOPE Miami Beach Art Fair, Miami Beach, Florida, USA

2022

Between Heartlands: Kelly Wang, Art@Bainbridge, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, USA

2021

Dialectics of Abstraction, VillageOne Art, New York, USA

2020

Kelly Wang: Recent Paintings, Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, USA

2018

Recluse Studio Series and Other Works, Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, USA

2017

DIMENSIONS: Paintings by Kelly Wang, Piermont Flywheel Gallery, New York, USA

2016

Works on Paper, CORE: Club, New York, USA

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2025-2026

Metamorphosis: Chinese Imagination and Transformation, China Institute Gallery, New York, USA (Sep 10 - Jan 11, 2026)

2025

Scars of Silence: Kelly Wang, Jihee Han, A2Z Art Gallery, Paris, France

2024

All Together Now: Celebrating AAPI Voices in Contemporary Art, Quaila Contemporary Art, San Francisco, USA
Asian American Abstraction: Historic to Contemporary, Hollis Taggart, New York, USA
Shan Shui Reboot: Re-Envisioning Landscape for a Changing World, China Institute Gallery, New York, USA
Material Investigations: Kelly Wang & Ren Light Pan, INKStudio & INKinstitute, New York, USA
Landscape as Metaphor: Contemporary Voices, Alisan Fine Arts, New York, USA
Living Paper, Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong
ART SG 2024, Alisan Fine Arts, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

2023

Ink Alchemy: Beyond Tradition, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong
In the Mood for Love, VillageOne Art, New York, USA
Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions, Asia Society Texas, Houston, USA

2019-2020

Blue-Green Realms in Chinese Painting, Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey, USA

2019

Surface Visions, VillageOne Art, New York, USA
LA Art Show, Walter Wickiser Gallery, California, USA

2018

Purity of Mind, Fu Qiumeng Fine Art, New York, USA

2017

Winter Works, Piermont Flywheel Gallery, New York, USA

2016

TWO+, Rockwall Studios, Brooklyn, New York, USA

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Asian Art Museum San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
Washington & Lee University Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky, USA
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts, USA
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas, Missouri, USA