Meet Mengyi Grace Wang

 

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mengyi Grace Wang. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mengyi Grace below.

Mengyi Grace, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

Keeping my creativity alive is an ongoing process that involves staying open to inspiration, curiosity, and balancing my everyday life, and it often may not come easily. Acrylic on canvas is the discipline I reflect and express personally, professionally and artistically, but when it comes to outsourcing inspirations, I value the importance of setting aside time for reflection and experimentation. Giving myself space to explore nature, visiting museums, and crafting helps me recharge and discover new perspectives for my art inspirations. Whether it’s watching blooming flowers at a local garden, a national park or a random trial, walking through art museums and galleries, or sewing and making some crafty projects, these valuable moments help me quietly reflect myself and fuel my imagination.

Stepping away from the canvas is also when I found the inspiration for my painting series “When Modern Impressionism Meets Traditional Chinese Art.” When I spot the beautiful lotuses blooming at the Huntington Library in California, I especially recall my childhood memories spent with my family at the Summer Palace watching lotus in the pond. This connection has deeply shaped my identity as an Asian woman artist living in the U.S., inspiring me to create my piece “Lotus in Memory.” Art is a lifestyle and embracing the creative journey with patience in the process has been very invaluable to my growth.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am a cross-cultural contemporary artist focusing on acrylic on canvas. My artworks present a lens of narrative storytelling that spans the past, present, and future, to which I have a strong personal connection, such as memories, experiences, and the influences that have inspired me. Nature, animals, and landscape are frequently featured as central elements in my paintings.

My painting series “When Modern Impressionism Meets Traditional Chinese Art” is the main body of work I am best known for, which I combine two different art styles and fusion relationships together to reflect my cross-cultural heritage. Under the influence of my unique cross-cultural background, it has shaped me as an artist and also set me and my artworks apart from others. Born in China, lived in the U.K, and residing in the U.S., I absorb the tremendousness of the historical capital, the glamour of British Impressionism and the fantasy of beautiful nature. This painting series reflects my artistic voice and bridges my cultural experiences. In this series, I honor my roots while embracing new influences to create a healing process with balanced color palettes featuring various green hues as well as vivid pink and purple shades. These warm tones aim to offer a healing viewing experience and invite the viewers to a calm and positive journey no matter where they are when engaging with these pieces.

Throughout my artistic journey, I am very grateful for the awards, features and opportunities I have received locally, nationally, and internationally. I am grateful that my paintings have been featured in globally-distributed media including the UK-originated Artist Talk Magazine, the Ukraine-based Artwork Gallery, the Netherlands-printed Visual Art Journal, and Spain-based Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art Magazine.

Being able to exhibit my work globally, including the U.S., Canada, and the UK is a highlight of my artistic journey, especially participating in the 2024 International Exhibition of Calligraphy & Painting to showcase along with all other international artists from over 40 countries in Canada hosted by the cross-border art association, the Canadian National Artists Association (CNAA). It was an extraordinary honor to have my painting showcased along with master artists, such as Fan Zeng and Yushun Lu, whose works I have admired ever since the beginning of my journey.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Resilience, open-mindedness, and lifelong learning are the three qualities that I consider most important in both my life journey and my artistic journey. Life and art are rarely smooth paths. It may be filled with various challenges, such as creative blocks and setbacks. Resilience has been crucial in focusing on building emotional strength and staying motivated. Having lived in different countries and immersed myself in diverse cultures, I’ve learned to stay open-minded and appreciate different perspectives and approaches. This has significantly shaped my transnational art style and creative process to blend two different art styles together. On the other hand, life and art are both always a learning process and to stay lifelong learning has allowed me to grow both as an artist and as an individual. Whether it’s experimenting with a new medium, such as water color, diving into modern impressionism art history and the history of the Qing dynasty, or learning and enhancing a different skill, such as sewing and knitting, this mindset has been transformative and has been helping me to gather new sources of inspirations and motivations.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

The past 12 months have been a journey of self-improvement. One of my self-growth areas has been transitioning to working on larger-scale canvases, which has allowed me to expand my storytelling in greater depth. This shift has challenged and enhanced me technically and conceptually to balance composition, details, and movement on a much larger surface. It has been incredibly rewarding to see how these larger paintings come to life and engage viewers in a more immersive way.

Another highlight has been having my paintings to showcase at the Huntington Beach Art Center as part of the Centered on the Center 2025 exhibition from January 25 to March 29 to celebrate 30 years of the incredible art center. This unique exhibition experience holds deep personal meaning to me because it creates an opportunity for my work to connect with audiences who share similar cultural backgrounds, as well as with minorities living in North America. It’s an opportunity to share my narrative art with communities that resonate with the themes of identity, heritage, and memory – elements central to my work.

Additionally, I am very grateful to have joined the British Art Network (BAN) community as a member, a professional network supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Tate. When I lived in London, Tate Modern and Tate Britain were the crucial places for me to understand impressionism, impressionists in London and British artworks. Being part of this dynamic community of artists, curators, and art professionals has been a special opportunity for my artistic growth. It has allowed me to further explore diverse perspectives, gain deeper insights into British art, and enrich my fusion painting series with innovative approaches.

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Image Credits

Shu Li

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