Beneath the chaos there lies a quietude. Faint voices drowned out by the oversaturated fabric of modern life. In “The Loudest Silence” Ziping Wang draws out these voices. Pairing her distinctive maximalist aesthetic with enigmatic depictions of everyday objects and natural forms, she peels away sections of densely packed canvas to allow us brief moments with an unlikely stillness.
Wang creates vibrant, brimming reflections of the contemporary tech-scape by extracting universal symbols from classical art, product packaging and internet forums. Cartoon cows and pixelated chicken drumsticks float suspended alongside the figures of Japanese scroll paintings slipping mysteriously behind folding blinds. Grids reminiscent of editing software streak across the canvas. Wang’s works overflow with universal symbolism and trans-cultural markers, cultivating a distinct visual language that immediately captures the viewer’s attention. Inspired by secret codes and online slang, she conceals and modifies these collective symbols. The result is a complex and evocative cryptology that communicates the distinctly contemporary feeling of information overload.
In “The Loudest Silence,” a subtlety enters this universe. Monochrome moments of quotidian surrealism tucked inside of Wang’s intensely graphic visual field. Dotted throughout this new body of work, they appear as bizarre composite constructions that allude to the contents of our bags and drawers or in oozing pools of ambiguous foliage and household paraphernalia. As Wang’s visual universe expands to include these more subdued areas, her cryptology develops. At the heart of this latest work is a paradox. With the inclusion of these softer components Wang brings a new spaciousness and harmony to her paintings. However, as the viewer approaches the canvas, they discover these sections to contain imagery near impossible to construe. Surrealist worlds that lie outside of the attention economy but require a concentration that truly holds the viewers gaze.
Wang’s drawing together of these visual worlds gives rise to a poignant viewing experience. One that comments on the very nature of attention. A bright orange soda can peeking out from behind an array of sweet floral prints exists in the same space as a pair of stacked monochrome squares in blue and gray each depicting a one eyed septopus. To the right, we glimpse the edge of a red cherry. An ironic welcome sign is pasted throughout the painting. In this multifarious universe devoid of grounding elements, Wang leaves the viewer wondering where to look and what they are being welcomed into. This fascinating groundlessness is maintained by avoiding layers of orientation such as narratives and perspectives. Discernible characters are rarely seen. Wang’s paintings embody a flatness that mimics the virtual experience. Shadows and vanishing points are eliminated and with them the possibility of a single observer. This is a shared perspective. An all-inclusive world with no hierarchy or focal point. In this world, images are ingredients sourced from the internet or supermarket shelves, chosen by Wang for their color and shape. Using these, she collages together irresistible constellations before hand painting the final piece. This method and her aptitude for composition allows her to imagine visually stunning works that avoid centrality whilst also captivating her audience. The viewer is as much disorientated as they are enticed. In this way, Wang brings an intriguingly familiar experience to the gallery space. One contained in the gadgets tucked away in our pockets or clutched between our hands.
It is this experience itself that is at the core of Wang’s project. The feeling of an encounter with one of her pieces and the attempt to decipher meaning from the chaos. “The Loudest Silence” presents an evolution of this experience. One that operates around a dance with the viewer’s attention. As Wang brings in these quieter elements she makes a powerful statement on the value of the harder to decipher aspects of our world. Drawing the audience in with the vibrant imagery of the attention economy but holding their attention with a more mysterious visual language, Wang points to the complexity of our modern world and what we might miss by only giving space to its loudest parts.
at Peres Projects, Seoul
until February 10, 2023