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The doe-eyed deviants of painter Xue Wang
10.18.2017
12:11 pm
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“Some Like it Hot.” A painting by London-based artist Xue Wang.
 

“My take on ghosts is perhaps a little tinged with lightheartedness. These are not demons who threaten us mortals. But their merry mischief undoes our sense of everyday security. They rummage in our larders, shin their way up our drainpipes and play havoc with domestic bliss. As these spooks creep among us, we needn’t shrink from them but welcome their witty messages from the other side!”

—artist Xue Wang, September 2013

After moving from China to London while she was in her early 20s, future artist Xue Wang worked in the world of fashion. Armed with a BA in Fashion Design from Lu Xun Academy of Fine Art in Shenyang when she arrived in the UK, she would go on to complete her Masters in the same field in London. Despite her academic achievements, Wang’s original career of choice didn’t stick, and she soon found herself painting to better feed her creative instincts. Wang cites the work of many impactful artists as sources for her inspiration such as outsider hero Henry Darger, Frida Kahlo and unsurprisingly American pop surrealist Mark Ryden. If you are at all familiar with Ryden’s work over from the last three decades, I’m sure that you’ll notice his influence on her art.

It takes Wang anywhere from eighteen to twenty hours to complete a piece which she says are “reflective” of her personality. The artist also collects animal specimens, noting that she keeps a box of deceased bumblebees in her studio, which isn’t all that unusual as artists often have a penchant of incorporating aspects of nature into their work. For this post (this is Dangerous Minds after all), I’ve hand-picked some Wang’s more unsettling paintings for you to check out below. Not all of Wang’s work centers around innocent-looking, wide-eyed characters deeply entrenched in bad behavior—and the artist herself hopes that people can also see the more whimsical side of her work which has foundations in classic fairy tales and Hollywood nostalgia.
 

“Jack the Whipper.”
 

“Vampyres!”
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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10.18.2017
12:11 pm
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