Wuchao Feng
About
Wuchao Feng (b.1998) is a Chinese artist who is currently studying at the Royal College of Art. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2020. Through the use of natural metaphors, particularly water, she advocates for a new definition of identity as a fluid state in her art practice. She is interested in the natural industries that were once thriving but have now gradually declined due to urbanization in her hometown. She finds solace in the tranquil embodiment of water, a form of oceanic therapy that soothes her soul and helps her recognize the unbreakable bond between herself and nature.
Her works have been exhibited at Paris, Texas, SOKA Art (2023), EXPO Chicago (2022), Artworks Open, Barbican Arts Group Trust (2022), Maritime Asia, Rockbund Art Museum (2022), Art Nova 100 Annual Exhibition, Guardian Art (2021), CRASSH 20th Anniversary Exhibition, University of Cambridge (2021), Cladogram: 2nd KMA International Juried Biennial (2021), Camera USA® 2019: National Photography Exhibition and Award, Florida (2019).
Statement
The unrefined misshapen pearls depict unspeakable traumas through the feminine metaphor of pearls, born of time, nature, and heart. I often find myself grappling with a sort of aphasia when attempting to articulate my trauma, especially those invisible ones attached to my female identity. The weight of these mixed feelings silences my voice, while the language barrier adds an additional layer of complexity as a foreigner. Gradually, I discovered that a pearl has formed out of the silence and endurance in my heart.
I’m from a coastal province called Zhejiang in southern China, where most freshwater pearls come from. After the grafting process, predominantly operated by low-paid female workers, a piece of mantle tissue is implanted into the pearl, forcing it to transform its own body to produce more pearls. These alphabet-shaped pearls are considered imperfections in batches. Seen as flawed and cheap byproducts of pearl cultivation, they have been rearranged and translated into another natural language, beyond the bounds of perfection or imperfection.
Indeed, a pearl language is formed naturally.
Pearls of Wisdom
Language is produced by the material itself. As the pearls grow imperfectly, language is revealed. The material ‘emits’ language as if it is already embedded in its very cellular structure, where language is explained through the cyphers of the signifier and the signified.
The Pearl is a confessional mirror, reflecting the self and the group, a testimony to both contradiction and reconciliation. The pearl is an abbreviation of the clam’s endurance. Similar to Katie Holten’s description of her stone practice, the pearls also bear witness. All the lines, cracks, holes, marks, dots, wrinkles, and nacre traces that appear on the pearl over and over again, and on different scales, must be trying to tell us something about the life of the clam, the trauma, and the urgency of collective care. Messages percolate from the past, up through cracks and scars on the pearl's skin and heart.
Certainty of Fluidity
Trapped in a family religious dispute, the artist reflects on the significance and functions of faith and concludes that the ultimate goal is to deal with the tragedy of death, unjustifiable sufferings, and the vindication of dogmas.
Unlike traditional amulets, which lose their power when exposed to water as her family believes, the bio-degradable amulet made of oyster shell reflects the artist’s oceanic identity, a symbol of the ever-renewing of life and death. It demonstrates how the artist gradually defines a fluid certainty in water and how she deals with the fear of death with faith in water.
