Tea parties, myths and abstract forms: Yung Hsuan Wang’s work draws out everyday wonders

Yung Hsuan Wang’s work is like a warm hug. Her brightly coloured pencil drawings and large scale paintings are a friendly welcome into her whimsical world of everyday objects, where simple things like birthday candles and dining tables set for tea parties act as symbols for memories, places and personal moments. An avid collector of “colours, candles, teapots, buttons, ribbons, and colourful furniture I find”, Yung often intertwines these everyday influences into her vibrant visual worlds, using painting as a way to record personal memories from the world around her by transforming them into “surreal visual narratives”, she says.

Working from her south London studio, the artist starts out most of her pieces with oil paints or pastels, applying thick layers of colour to canvas, wood, paper and ceramics. Yung likes to take inspiration for the shapes in her scenes from artists like Joan Miro whose “stars, eyes and birds became symbols through which viewers could navigate his dreamlike worlds”, she says. The artist also frequently takes symbols and elements from nature to examine the memories and places she paints: moons, landscapes, and “mythological creatures from various tales” make an impression on her characters and scenes. “I find joy in bringing life to these inanimate objects and creatures with colour”, she ends. “For me painting is a process of responding to daily life and staying attuned to the little details that shape the world.”