Mei Ling WANG “Keyword–Continuation”

Mei Ling WANG's Keyword series originates from self-portraiture created through a unique interpretive approach. 

She embeds words used by family and friends to describe her within accumulating and expanding dots and lines, depicting herself in an abstract manner. As her creative practice evolves, these brushstrokes that divide and multiply like cells come to embody ever more lived experiences: memorable traveled landscapes, intimate familial bonds, fleeting daily moments, and subtle self-reflections. 

Love Lots

Love Lots evokes the blue flames flaring from a volcano at night, ethereal yet alive with searing vitality.

Bond

Two young girls walk hand in hand towards a world at once lush and unknown. They are Wang’s nieces, and the sight of the sisters together brings to mind her relationship with her elder sister. Through the years, they have shared one another’s joys and hardships, each a source of strength for the other.

WANG gradually untethers words from their linguistic meanings and recasts them as colors, dots, lines, and forms; the keywords that once pointed to “self” also begin to extend outward and become her lens for observing the world. 

Adventurer

Adventurer has an almost surreal quality, its enigmatic colors recalling A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The painting came from deja vu moments that Mei Ling Wang experienced while hiking and cycling. During a visit to the Wujie tribal village in Nantou, she felt time suspended around her. The scene seemed strangely familiar, as though she had been there once before, perhaps in a dream.

“I wake up around three in the morning almost every day, and before the city awakens, I savor the time that belongs entirely to myself. When the sky begins to brighten, I head out for a run, and after returning home to shower, I begin painting. After a midday rest, I resume working in the afternoon. Then, I conclude the day with a walk or exercise in the evening. On weekends, I go cycling with friends, challenging myself to ride longer distances and tackle steeper mountain roads. These daily workouts are not simply about maintaining physical fitness; they are also a way to keep me in a state of constant readiness.” — Mei Ling WANG

Fortune-3

Fortune-3 shows an eagle in flight, representing freedom and the courage to meet challenges. Wang chooses a life of simplicity and measures wealth neither by possessions nor by money. For her, true wealth is inward, the freedom to live on her own terms, the courage to overcome obstacles, and the ability to pass positive energy on to others. 

For WANG, art creation and life have never been separate. She has long maintained a disciplined routine and regular exercise habits, including running, cycling, mountain climbing, and skiing. These pursuits share a similar rhythm with her daily artistic practice at the canvas—one of persistence, focus, and accumulation, as she continually pushes within the limits of her physical endurance.

Frozen

In Frozen, tiny painted dots gather like ice crystals and swirl like snow, blanketing the ground and the shadowed forest beyond. The painting preserves her impression of the barren stillness she chanced upon during a ski trip in a remote part of Hokkaido. 

Thus, Keyword–Continuation is not only an extension of WANG’s creative practice over time, but also an ongoing process of accruing, transforming, and generating lived experiences. One dot leads to another, and one line extends into the next; words connect to memories and may also become the starting point leading to a new life experience. 

 

On WANG's canvas, creation knows no definitive end, but rather exists in a state of perpetual growth. 

Live Well, Love Lots, and Laugh Often

Live Well, Love Lots, and Laugh Often, a personal motto, are words she repeats to herself each day and, in turn, shares with everyone who comes across the work. 

Presented as variations within the “Keywords” series, which began from self-portraiture, these phrases mark both the ground on which Wang now stands, and the horizon towards which she looks.