Propagate 1
(click image to enlarge)
Melissa Wang

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest, the teleology of interstellar imperialism (white patriarchal saviorism) is a “killer story,” one that overlooks or erases “life stories.” The text urges for an acknowledgement of the indelible effect of violence as well as less human-centric notions of sentience.

In my works, I offer visual speculations of the life stories of forests and more broadly, human and nature interdependence. I layer water and paint, scraping through them to reveal previous encounters; both ossification and dissipation contribute to these textures. I use organic marks and colors that signify tense yet dynamic landscapes. What conditions led to their precarity? What fears or fantasies inform our perceptions of these places? Bright, vulnerable shapes appear to circulate, balance and even dance. In the places between loss and growth, what ways of living unfold?