Now On 2025-07-10 - 2025-08-22
Alisan Fine Arts New York is pleased to present the first U.S. solo exhibition of Beijing-based artist Wang Mengsha. Known for her ability to blend traditional Chinese painting with a contemporary sensibility, Wang reinterprets the classic ‘xieyi’ style with bold colors, playful imagery, and a touch of humor. Her work often draws on everyday objects, elegant figures, historical Chinese garden settings and scenes from nature, echoing the landscapes and culture of southeastern China.
Wang describes her paintings as dreamlike and fluctuating—like shadows that flicker in and out of view. Rather than aiming for realism, she creates imagined spaces where objects and figures change in scale and perspective. Her concept of “Borrowing Shadow” reflects this approach: using recognizable forms to build a personal, poetic world inspired by Eastern philosophy.
“My paintings describe a metaphysical rather than realistic dreamscape. The word “shadow” fits perfectly, while “borrow” lends the image an even more ephemeral and unreal quality. Everything in my work appears with shifting scale and perspective, like a dream—an illusion that drifts between fantasy and reality. It’s an expression of Eastern Zen philosophy: “Borrowing Shadow” means borrowing forms to construct my own utopian dream.”
Using a technique from traditional Chinese painting known as scatter-point perspective, Wang builds her compositions in a flowing, intuitive way. This approach allows her to move freely through memories, emotions, and ideas—rather than following a strict or linear story. Hibiscus Garden is a tondo filled with symbols of good fortune – birds, flowers, deer, scholar rocks and other dreamlike objects to invite viewers into a playful world full of curiosity and wonder. Enchanted Purple Gourd is similar, although in this piece there is a pair of bathing maidens as its central subject, surrounded by recurring characters and objects: a cartoon-like tiger, giant birds, roses, and as the title suggests, a vibrant purple gourd. Her art gently questions how we hold on to imagination in a world that often asks us to let it go.
