Interview: Sophia Xinman Wang
Luca Curci talks with Sophia Xinman Wang, the winner of ARTIST OF THE MONTH – JANUARY 2022.

Sophia Xinman Wang, through the comprehensive materials, installation art, mass participation art and art events in various forms, promotes the creation of animal protection, protection of the natural environment as the theme of her artworks and activities, to show the observation and thinking of life, to stimulate public attention and action on global biodiversity conservation, global climate issues.

LUCA CURCI – What is art for you?
SOPHIA XINMAN WANG – Art is my mission. My art has been carrying our artistic practice on public issues of environmental protection for years, from the three aspects of “the symbiotic relationship between man and nature “, “protecting biodiversity” and “low-carbon lifestyle”. I use unique artistic language and environmental protection materials, the integration of art, environmental protection, public education, fashion, design, as a whole, to create a collection of beauty and connotation in one, the shocking and profound significance of the work of art.

LC – What are you currently working on?
SXW – I am working on the “life and hope series” and one of the works named “I have been here, I have never been here”. These artworks that blend contemporary Chinese ink and acrylic materials are thought-provoking. The animals in the picture used Dongba text in Yunnan, China, a combination of the phenotypic and phenotypic composition of the picture pictogram, more than 1000 years ago, is still in use today. Dongba is known as the world’s only surviving hieroglyphics, known as the “living fossil” of the text. In 2003, donga ancient books were added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register and digitally recorded. Along with the Dongba graphic text, quantum mechanics formula symbols as background ornaments, together form a dimensional contrast of time and space, in order to inspire viewers to examine the past and present human ecology, and trigger human society on the relationship between nature, science, technology, and environment reflection. “Life and Hope” is an important work of my typical character, through some “uncontrollable” accidental colour relationship, in trying to build a conflicting “situation”, let the audience travel in different emotions, through the “psychological sculpture” of artistic language, for the birth and destruction of species carved from the individual’s inner memory and pursuit. The work attempts to focus on the thinking of connecting people from heaven and earth. Black-and-white colour contrast, symbolizing sadness and pain, and colour, metaphorical happiness and hope. In some of my installations, I use branches, paper cuts, water powder, linen, plastic, etc. as a medium of creation to look at how humans build relationships, communities, and natural systems from an anthropological perspective. These serious themes are reflected in my work and are reborn in the form of artistic symbols. I try to blur all the social differences between culture, identity, colour, rich and poor, and to explore the effects of environmental change on the Earth’s ecosystem by thinking about the quantum mechanics time dimension and focusing on the transformation and variation of a fragile and great life.

LC – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
SXW – I am a visiting art professor and an international environment eco-artist. The influence of my art is the research found by scientists extinct number about wildlife and my travel experiences. When I collected creative material around the world, I found that no matter in the forest or snowy mountains or sea, the number of wild animals is sharply reduced, they are extinct. This is what I urgently want to call for more people to pay attention to global climate change issues and have action. Air pollution, global warming, waste accumulation and unconscionable consumption are all about everyone’s present and future.

LC – Which is the role the artist plays in society? And contemporary art?
SXW – The artist is the spokesperson of the era. A contemporary artist’s work should reflect the problems faced by the current society, ask questions, trigger thinking and action. Contemporary artworks are marked with their own culture and backgrounds from expressing a certain range of community issues, or from the global perspective.

LC – Where do you find your inspiration?
SXW – I find my inspiration from nature and wildlife. Since I started at the age of 5, I have had the ability to communicate with animals. This is my talent and also my pain. I can feel the same as pain animals.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artworks?
SXW – The most challenging about creating my artworks is the practice lies in awakening the modern people to find the soul, return to the harmony and unity of all things living in heaven and earth. In the current crisis period of global warming, It can be seen that my artwork through the picture of the spirit of criticism, from the reality of the current global ecological environment crisis, extended to the reality of human and animal survival crisis situation, the realization of material and spiritual double criticism. As an international environmental eco-artist, I have been using my dedication to art for more than a decade to speak out about the global climate crisis. Suggest that we are good at finding the beauty of nature in the busy work, in the practice of a low-carbon lifestyle to find ecological beauty, in the inner feeling of great love to embrace the beauty of life.