Yuan Wen – Artist Biography
Yuan Wen, born in Chongqing, is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver. Her practice encompasses painting, printmaking, installation, video, sound, and performance, with a primary focus on materials such as bamboo, Xuan paper, hemp, and natural processes. Drawing inspiration from traditional East Asian craft techniques and contemporary research-creation methodologies, Wen delves into themes of material agency, feminist spatial practice, and ecological interdependence.
Grounded in traditional material knowledge, her work emphasizes concepts of repetition, pause, and responsiveness as means to comprehend form and space. Her paintings frequently develop in conversation with installation and printmaking, allowing traces of labour, water, and touch to remain visible.
Wen holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
文媛 – 艺术家简介
文媛出生于重庆，现居温哥华，是一位跨领域艺术家。她的创作涵盖绘画、版画、装置、影像与声音，主要专注于使用竹、宣纸、麻等天然材料。她从东亚传统工艺技法与当代实验方法中汲取灵感，探讨材料能动性、女性主义空间实践以及生态依存等议题。
她的创作根植于传统材料知识，通过“重复、停顿与回应”等方式来理解形态与空间。她的绘画常与装置和版画实践形成对话，使体力劳作，水的流动和可触感的痕迹得以保留并显现。
文媛毕业于卑诗大学UBC，获艺术硕士学位（MFA），并于艾米丽·卡尔艺术与设计大学获得艺术学士学位（BFA）。
Yuan Wen – Artist Statement 2026
My mixed-media paintings emerge from processes of accumulation, absorption, and attentive repetition. I work with ink, pigment, Xuan paper, lithographic materials, and layered surfaces, allowing water, pressure, and time to shape each composition. Rather than viewing painting as merely image-making, I see it as a material encounter—one that unfolds through negotiation between body, surface, and environment.
Drawing from Daoist ziran (自然) and embodied awareness practice, my painting process emphasizes slowness and responsiveness. Each mark is shaped by pauses and micro-decisions, where meaning arises through process rather than predetermined form. Materials are not passive supports; they act, resist, absorb, and transform, leaving visible traces of their own agency.
My work also draws on diasporic experiences and feminist spatial awareness. I am attentive to the surface as a site of dwelling—where memory, labour, and presence accumulate. The paintings carry residues of previous processes, including printmaking and installation, allowing personal history and ecological context to remain embedded within the work.
– Yuan Wen 2026
文媛 – 艺术家陈述 2026
我的综合媒介绘画源于一种关于积累、吸收与专注性重复的创作过程。我使用墨、颜料、宣纸、石版材料以及多层次的画面结构，让水、压力与时间共同塑造每一幅作品。与其将绘画视为单纯的图像生成，我更将其理解为一次与材料的相遇——一种在肢体、表面与环境之间不断协商与展开的过程。
我的绘画方法受到道家“自然”与内在觉知实践的影响，强调缓慢与回应。每一处着笔都源于停顿与细微的判断，含意并非预设，而是在过程中逐渐生成。材料并非被动的承载体，它们会行动、抗拒、吸收并转化自身状态，在画面中留下属于自身的能动痕迹。
我的创作同样植根于离散经验与女性空间意识探索。我将画面表面视为一种“栖居之所”，记忆、劳作与现场感的不断累积。绘画中保留了版画与装置创作的影响，使个人历史与生态语境持续嵌入作品。
– 文媛 2026
A Thousand Forms, One Nature –
Art by Yuan Wen
Opening Reception: April 16, 2025, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: April 25, 2025 6-8pm
https://yuanwentalk.eventbrite.ca
Exhibition: April 16 – May 22, 2025 by appointment
Lipont Gallery, Rm218 (no elevator), 4211 No. 3 Road Richmond BC
Lipont Gallery is pleased to present A Thousand Forms, One Nature, a solo exhibition featuring mixed-media works and limited-edition prints by Vancouver-based artist Yuan Wen. This compelling series continues Wen’s ongoing exploration into the dynamic interplay between material agency, ecological systems, and cultural memory.
Through painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage, Wen fuses organic forms inspired by the natural world with imagined imagery. The result is a hybrid aesthetic that blurs the lines between traditional and contemporary art practices. Her works evoke a vivid synthesis of living forms, cultural references, and social networks—inviting viewers to contemplate the origin of the natural world that gives rise to “a thousand forms.”
Wen explains:
“A Thousand Forms, One Nature explores the fluid intersection of materiality, natural cycles, and spatial interconnectedness. This mixed-media exhibition examines how organic and synthetic materials interact, degrade, and transform over time, questioning the boundaries between permanence and impermanence. Inspired by Michel Serres’ idea that ‘A thousand cultures, one nature,’ the exhibition reflects on the enduring presence of nature beyond human constructs, revealing the invisible forces that shape our shared world.”
The exhibition will be on view at Lipont Gallery in Richmond, BC, from April 16 to May 22, 2025. A public opening reception will be held on April 16 from 6–8 PM, followed by an artist talk on April 25 from 6–8 PM, offering an opportunity to meet the artist and gain insight into her creative process.
Admission is free and by appointment. To book your visit, please click here.
万象一源 — 文媛艺术展
开幕：2025年4月16日 晚6:00 – 8:00时
敬请预约：https://yuanwen.eventbrite.ca
艺术家讲座：2025年4月25日 晚6:00 – 8:00时
敬请预约：https://yuanwentalk.eventbrite.ca
展览：2025年4月16日至5月22日
平时参观请在此链接预约。
Lipont Gallery, Rm218, 4211 No. 3 Road Richmond BC
温哥华力邦美术馆 (Lipont Gallery) 荣幸举办温哥华艺术家文媛的个展【万象一源】，将展出文媛近两年创作的混合媒介作品和限量版画作品。此系列延续了她的“探索物质能动性、生态系统与文化记忆之间的关系。”
文媛通过绘画、素描、版画和拼贴等方式，把她受到自然启发的有机形态和想象中的图像融入到混合媒介作品中，增强这些形态并创造一种混合美学，突破了传统艺术形式的界限，探索了新的创作可能性。作品中的图像融合了生命形态的世界、文化世界和社交网络世界，促使观众寻找产生“万种形态”的自然起源。
“【万象一源】探索了物质能动性、自然周期和空间互联的流动。本次混合媒材展览基于对有机与合成材料之间互动、降解和转化的探索，思考坚固与暂时性之间的边界。受米歇尔·塞尔 (Michel Serres) “千种文化，一种自然” 观点的启发，本展览反思了自然如何超越人类的碎片化，揭示了普遍性、变迁以及塑造我们世界的无形力量。”
展览将于 2025 年 4 月 16 日至 5 月 22 日在位于加拿大列治文市的力邦美术馆展出。开幕活动将于 4 月 16 日晚 6 点至 8 时举行，艺术家讲座将于 4 月 25 日晚 6 点至 8时举行，为观众提供与艺术家见面并深入了解其创作过程的机会。
Yuan Wen – Artist Statement 2025
My artistic practice combines painting, printmaking, and installation to investigate the dynamic relationship between material agency, ecological systems, and cultural memory. I examine the interactions between organic forms and human-made spaces by fusing traditional printmaking techniques with contemporary painting. My process highlights the material characteristics to produce layered, immersive works that reflect both natural cycles and social frameworks.
As a first-generation immigrant artist, my creations are shaped by Eastern philosophies and current ecological discussions. Inspired by the Taoist concepts of Zi Ran (self-production) and Bruno Latour’s critique of the divide between nature and humanity, I seek to blur the lines between human and non-human entities. This exhibition at Lipont Gallery allows me to delve deeper into these themes, utilizing visual abstraction to reveal the invisible forces influencing our relationship with the environment. I invite viewers to reconsider their connections to materials, organisms, and histories.
– Yuan Wen 2025
文媛 – 艺术家陈述 2025
我的艺术创作融合了绘画、版画和装置艺术，探索物质能动性、生态系统与文化记忆之间的关系。我通过将西方传统版画技巧与当代艺术形式相结合，研究有机与人造形态之间的转化。我的创作过程强调材料的特性，创作出层叠、沉浸式的作品，既反映了自然规律，也体现了社会结构。
作为一位第一代移民艺术家，我的作品受东方式哲学和当下生态议题的影响。受道家“自然”概念和布鲁诺·拉图尔对自然与人类分割的批判启发，我寻求模糊人类与非人类实体之间的界限。此次在力邦画廊的展览让我有机会更深入地探讨这些主题，通过视觉抽象揭示影响我们与环境关系的无形力量。我邀请观众重新思考他们与物质、生物和历史之间的联系。
A Thousand Forms, One Nature
A Thousand Forms, One Nature explores the fluid intersection between material agency, natural cycles, and spatial interconnectedness. This mixed-media exhibition examines how organic and synthetic materials interact, degrade, and transform over time, questioning the boundaries between solidity and transience. Inspired by Michel Serres’ assertion that “A thousand cultures, one nature,” this exhibition reflects on how nature endures beyond human fragmentation, illuminating universality, change, and the unseen forces that shape our world.
The works in this exhibition create a dynamic interplay of suspended fragments, gestural forms, and flow networks through a combination of printmaking techniques, painting, and hand-drawn elements. The tension between hard and soft edges reflects my engagement with Taoist principles of zi ran (self-production) and Bruno Latour’s critique of the human-nature divide. By layering organic textures and structural patterns, these works evoke the rhythms of nature—from cellular formations to shifting landscapes—capturing both ephemerality and continuity.
The mixed media paintings, such as Under the Veil, Whispering Stillness, and Motionless, examine materiality, impermanence, and the entangled relationship between nature and social structures. Inspired by 17th-century scientific illustrations, these pieces investigate the intersections of observation, documentation, and shifting environmental realities. Repeated structures and organic motifs reflect the artist’s fascination with patterns that emerge across micro and macro scales, revealing nature’s intrinsic order within apparent chaos.
Ultimately, A Thousand Forms, One Nature invites viewers to reconsider their relationship with materiality and the environment. It prompts reflection on how natural and synthetic worlds interact, how forms persist through cycles of change, and how, despite human-made divisions, we remain connected to a singular, evolving nature.
– Yuan Wen 2025
【万象一源】
【万象一源】探索了物质能动性、自然周期和空间互联的流动。本次混合媒材展览基于对有机与合成材料之间互动、降解和转化的探索，思考坚固与暂时性之间的边界。受米歇尔·塞尔（Michel Serres）“千种文化，一种自然”观点的启发，本展览反思了自然如何超越人类的碎片化，揭示了普遍性、变迁以及塑造我们世界的无形力量。
本次展览的作品通过版画、绘画和手绘元素的结合，创造了悬浮碎片、表现性形态和流动网络的动态互动。曲直边界的张力反映了与道家“自然”（自然生成）原则的关系，以及布鲁诺·拉图尔（Bruno Latour）对人类与自然分割的批判。通过有机质感和结构性图案的叠加，这些作品唤起了自然的节奏——从细胞构造到变动的景观——既捕捉了短暂性，又传递了连续性。
混合媒材画作，如【面纱之下】、【静谧低语】和【静】，探讨了物质性、无常性以及自然与社会结构之间的纠缠关系。受17世纪科学插图的启发，这些作品追寻观察、记录与变化的环境现实之间的交集。反复出现的结构和有机图案反映了艺术家对在微观与宏观形态变化的痴迷，揭示了自然在表面混乱中的内在秩序。
最终，【万象一源】邀请观众重新思考与物质性和环境的关系。它促使人们反思自然和合成世界如何互动，形式如何在变化的周期中持续存在，以及尽管人类制造了分界，我们依然与单一而不断演变的自然相连。
Yuan Wen – Artist CV
