10 Questions with Moyan Wang
Moyan Wang was born in China in the year 2000 and is currently an MFA student at UNC-Chapel Hill. She uses ceramics, paintings, and sculpture to explore the intersections of the personal, social, and historical trauma of China and the Chinese diaspora, drawing connections between the private and the public, the mythological and the realistic. Using materials and objects with rich cultural history, she creates enigmatic metaphors for unspoken stories.
Moyan Wang - Portrait
She graduated with a BA from Northwestern University and received the Graduate Merit Fellowship from UNC-Chapel Hill. Her works have been featured in Beijing Design Week, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, the Royal West of England Academy Biennial, and the Ambition Award exhibition in Shanghai.
Using diverse materials with deep cultural significance in China's collective memory, she addresses themes of immigration, diaspora, gender, surveillance, and resistance. Her art is haunted by the atmosphere of silence and restraint, shaped by the experience of living under the stigmatization of trauma. Through layers of encrypted symbolism, she aims to evoke the weight of history endured by individuals like herself.
SafeTrip, ceramic, found labels, size variable, 2024 © Moyan Wang
INTERVIEW
Your work often addresses themes of trauma, immigration, and the Chinese diaspora. How do you approach translating these complex themes into visual art through ceramics, painting, and sculpture?
I approach these themes through a combination of material experimentation and visual symbolism. I work with materials with inherent histories, such as ceramics and lacquer, which have long been used in Chinese art. Through my sculptures, I integrate fragmented human figures and animals, representing dislocated bodies and broken lineages. The ceramic material speaks to the fragility and resilience of the human condition, as it can be shattered yet repaired, much like the trauma endured by displaced communities. My paintings similarly embrace symbolic elements—using muted colors and fuzzy textures to convey memory's distortion and loss. Through these mediums, I aim to create a visual language that captures the weight of historical and personal trauma without being overtly didactic.
You use materials and objects with deep cultural significance. Can you share more about your process of selecting these materials and how they connect with the historical and personal narratives you explore?
My selection process is often profoundly personal yet rooted in cultural and historical research. For example, I use lacquer, a traditional material in East Asia, to signify both preservation and repair, referencing the technique of Kintsugi, where broken objects are mended with gold. This process mirrors the experience of personal and collective trauma: things can be broken, but they can also be made whole again, with the scars still visible. My use of objects with transnational l histories bridges a personal encounter with these materials and a more prominent myth of migration, loss, and the commodification of bodies. These materials carry traces of their origins, and when I transform them into art, I activate the histories embedded within them, allowing them to speak to personal and broader cultural narratives.
Grass Will Grow, oil on paper, 17x12 cm, 2025 © Moyan Wang
Will the Fire Vanish, oil on panel, 36x24 cm, 2025 © Moyan Wang
As an MFA student, how do your academic background and ongoing studies shape your creative process and the direction of your work?
My academic background provides a critical lens through which I view my work, helping refine my approach. In critiques, I receive invaluable feedback that pushes me to develop my pieces' conceptual depth further while deliberating about the precision of how I execute them. Additionally, I've become more interested in creating comprehensive installations that engage the audience physically and emotionally, immersing them in the experience of trauma, memory, and healing. The combination of research and practice in my MFA program has allowed me to better articulate the theoretical framework behind my work, balancing a rigorous conceptual approach with experimental material use.
Your work combines the private and the public, the mythological and the realistic, as you mention in your statement. How do you balance these contrasting elements in your pieces, and how do they inform each other in your creative process?
Balancing these elements involves acknowledging the plurality of experience—how private trauma intersects with public history and how myth can shape reality. In my work, I often use symbolism derived from myth to reflect on contemporary social issues. For example, in pieces like Orphan, where I connect a shark fetus to the discarded lives of Chinese female infants, I weave together personal, mythological, and political narratives. The mythological helps create a distance that makes it easier to approach difficult realities, while the realistic grounds the work in the lived experience of trauma and memory. These contrasting elements feed into each other, with mythology providing metaphors for the weight of history and realism anchoring those myths in tangible human stories.
Having grown up in China and now studying in the U.S., how does your experience as part of the Chinese diaspora shape the themes of your work?
Living between two cultures has instilled a sense of groundlessness in me, which deeply informs my work. I often project this feeling onto heritage objects, questioning their meaning and significance as they are displaced and recontextualized. Growing up in China, I was surrounded by symbols of history and heritage, yet being in the diaspora forces me to reevaluate them from a distance. This disconnection creates a longing for rootedness, which I explore through botanical motifs in my work—plants that reference growth, decay, and the passage of time. These elements symbolize my attempts to reconcile my identity and heritage, reflecting the complexities of living in a transnational space.
Witness, oil on wood, 15x14x3 cm, 2024 © Moyan Wang
Your art is "haunted by the atmosphere of silence and restraint, shaped by the experience of living under the stigmatization of trauma". How do you convey these feelings of silence in your work, and what role do unspoken stories play in your artistic expression?
Silence, in my work, is both a material and a narrative presence. I convey it through absence, fragmentation, and erasure. For example, I often create pieces where parts of the human body are missing or obscured, representing what cannot be spoken or remembered. The unspoken stories in my work are about what has been forgotten or erased by history, particularly in the context of Chinese politics and the suppression of trauma. By leaving certain elements unresolved or hidden, I invite the viewer to engage with the tension between what is visible and what remains silent, mirroring the difficulty of communicating trauma when it is silenced or denied.
In your artist statement, you describe your work as layered with encrypted symbolism. Can you give an example of how you use symbolism to communicate the weight of history in your pieces?
One example is the piece Shrine, where I use a ceramic head that was blasted and repaired with lacquer, leaving its scars visible. This piece references the beheading of Buddhist sculptures during the Cultural Revolution, and mending the broken ceramic symbolizes the restoration of memory, albeit scarred. The visible scars become an encrypted symbol of historical violence and resilience, communicating how history leaves its mark on bodies and objects. In another piece, Orphan, I use the symbolism of a dead shark fetus connected to an egg case, representing the discarded lives of female infants in China. This silent history is often erased.
You've exhibited internationally, from Beijing Design Week to the Royal West of England Academy Biennial. How do different cultural contexts influence how you approach your art and engage with viewers?
Exhibiting internationally forces me to think about the level of political nuance and symbolism my work can carry in different contexts. In China, certain aspects of my work may be seen as politically sensitive or taboo, while in Western contexts, the focus might shift more toward the personal and historical dimensions of trauma. I adapt my approach depending on how much can be conveyed or suggested in each cultural context. Still, ultimately, I aim to maintain a dialogue that transcends these boundaries by focusing on universal themes like loss, memory, and healing. Viewer engagement also differs—while some may resonate with the cultural specificity of my symbols, others might connect to the broader emotional and material aspects of the work.
My Diasporic Homeland, pit fired ocean mud, 20x17x5 in, 2024 © Moyan Wang
Prophet of the Flood, swamp mud, urushi lacuqer, paper, 30x23 in, 2025 © Moyan Wang
Ultimately, what message do you hope to convey through these themes?
I want to convey a sense of poetry in how we navigate trauma and memory, particularly within the context of histories that have been silenced or erased. My work speaks to the idea that our minds and bodies are continuations of vanished ones—that we are always in contact with what has been lost, and it is through acknowledging that connection that healing can begin. The scars and fragments in my work reflect this continuity, suggesting that even in brokenness, there is a persistence of life, memory, and meaning.
Looking to the future, what are some of the directions or new themes you're excited to explore in your work? Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions you're particularly excited about?
I'm excited to explore new techniques in painting, incorporating more intricate textures and experimenting with different mediums to expand the language of abstraction I've been developing. I'm also working on larger installations and sculptures that will create a more immersive environment, engaging the audience on a deeper physical and emotional level. Mythology and metaphor will continue to play a significant role. Still, I'm interested in making the connections between past and present even more explicit—particularly in how mythological symbols can speak to contemporary issues of identity, migration, and trauma. I have a few upcoming projects that will allow me to push these ideas further, including a new series of works that focus on water as a symbol of life and burial.
Artist’s Talk
Al-Tiba9 Interviews is a promotional platform for artists to articulate their vision and engage them with our diverse readership through a published art dialogue. The artists are interviewed by Mohamed Benhadj, the founder & curator of Al-Tiba9, to highlight their artistic careers and introduce them to the international contemporary art scene across our vast network of museums, galleries, art professionals, art dealers, collectors, and art lovers across the globe.
