Astra Huimeng Wang (b. Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, China) creates events and circumstances to examine the manufacture of truth and identity, collaborating extensively with orchestras, poets, actors, dancers, and at times, strangers. Across her multidisciplinary practice, 21 participants once tattooed different words from a short poem of hers onto their bodies; a choir chanted variations of Ode to Joy while confined in security cages; a wounded grand piano became the focal point of a surreal funeral cortège, marched through a ghost town in the American West; and a three-day chocolate fountain party, attended by hundreds, unraveled into orchestrated chaos.
Spanning sculpture, film, painting, drawing, and installation, Wang’s work draws from literature, music history, and her background in biomedical engineering. Recurring throughout are tensions between desire and rupture, structure and instability, and a lingering sense of crisis beneath constructed beauty.
Wang holds an M.F.A. in Studio Art from the San Francisco Art Institute and a B.E. in Biomedical Engineering from the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. A MacDowell Fellow, she has also been awarded fellowships and residencies from Millay Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and Wilhardt & Naud, among others. She has presented solo exhibitions at Make Room Gallery (Los Angeles) and Pennsylvania State University, and her work has been featured in exhibitions at Harper’s Gallery (New York), Simon Lee Gallery (London), Christie’s (New York), CFHILL (Stockholm), Galerie du Monde (Hong Kong), Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture (San Francisco), and with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.