Memory, loss and the architectural landscape intertwine in “Step 1: rid the pomelo skin of bitterness.” Hope Wang’s exhibition, part of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago’s (CAMOC) Spotlight Series and curated by Larry Lee, brings together textiles, print, painting and poetry into a comprehensive mashup of themes, mediums and emotions. Drawing from her background in traditional Chinese calligraphy and urban observations—think empty parking lots, and industrial façades—Wang employs handweaving and printmaking to capture fleeting moments and layered histories. In conversation, she shares insights into her creative process, discusses her role as the founder of the LMRM weaving studio, emphasizing the connection between her textile work and community engagement, and reflects on how her exhibition offers a nuanced view of Chinese American identity within contemporary culture. “Step 1: rid the pomelo skin of bitterness” invites us into a rich exploration of the transient details that define our surroundings and selves.
Tell me a bit about “Step 1: rid the pomelo skin of bitterness”—how does the exhibition reflect your unique approach to exploring themes of memory, loss and longing within the architectural landscape?
Much of my work draws on the objects that shape human movement and meaning built from repetitive manual labor. Through hand weaving and printmaking, I use repetitive activity to capture what always feels out of reach: the last seconds of the sun setting against a factory wall, shadows fluttering against the pavement, and the transient space between an open storefront and a shuttered one.
Throughout most of my childhood, my father taught me traditional Chinese calligraphy. A lot of famous Chinese calligraphy became seminal examples of excellent and artful writing because of the emotional capital charged in the strokes. Many of those poems and the calligraphy that gives them form, were contextualized by the mental landscape of people writing in states of political exile, armed conflict, homesickness or drunken heartache.
Any marks people leave behind are rife with information about them. I have learned to see the architectural landscape as a living document that gets written over again and again. Much like palimpsest letters, where people reused paper they received by erasing and writing over the original surface, I am interested in the things left between the old and new layers. The works in the show lean into the same themes through their process.
In what ways do you integrate the creative process into your work, especially in your textile series and the letterpress-printed series “Palimpsests”?
“Palimpsests” are identified as palimpsests because they still bear visible traces of a past life. Much like memory, repeated use simultaneously degrades the original, but also takes on its own meaning. In the show, I include a series of letterpress prints where the metal type was meticulously set, printed, re-set, and then “mis-printed” to appear as if letters were shaken and lost over countless runs through the press. I wanted to lean into the repetitive nature of printmaking and the variable ways poetry can be read and understood. These prints represent the tensions of translation: the materialization of language into text, as well as its “debris,” provokes a new reading.
Urban transience is an interesting challenge that I like to face in my textile work. Surfaces and situations can often appear or disappear overnight, but I’m interested in using the slow and persistent process of weaving to consider how the fleeting aspects of public life can often be cyclical and continuous. As I’m building up the work line by line, time becomes cumulative and material. A lot of my work features shadows moving across a building, using color and line to convey time passing.
How does your role as the founding director of the LMRM “loom room” weaving studio influence your engagement with Chicago’s textile community and reflect in the themes of your work and this exhibition, specifically?
LMRM stemmed from my own experiences as an artist looking for continued access to tools that often require more infrastructure and financial investment. LMRM is the second community studio in the country offering public access to a TC2 jacquard loom. Outside of universities, most people working on this particular tool get in front of one every two to three years.
This show includes some popular textile works of mine, as anchors to a show that feels “Hope Wang,” but also places them in conversation with the other parts of my practice that are less glamorous. Pushing back against art-world notions about recent and big works being the most relevant, much of what I’ve had to learn to do as an artist with limited resources is to get creative about how to use facilities when I have access to them, and when to let things grow in between when I don’t. This show kind of celebrates all the things that live, die and transform as part of the broader trajectory of an artist’s practice. It also positions textiles not as its separate thing, but part of a larger fabric (haha) of what it means to make as contemporary artists.
In line with the CAMOC Spotlight Series’ mission and your exploration of transient urban details, how does this exhibition contribute to the broader conversation about Chinese American experiences and contemporary visual culture?
As an artist, the work we do is to mirror the environments and perspectives that make up our lives. Growing up in the American Midwest as a Chinese American woman (++ so many other qualifiers) is inextricable from the way I experience the world, and it’s inextricable from what I put into the world through my values, my relationships and my work. Being part of the Chinese diaspora looks/feels/sounds so many different ways. As many ways as there are of us. So taking up space and sharing our internal world through art and writing is creating culture as we live it. I can’t speak for anyone else but myself, but to me, I think showing how I feel—heartache, anger, desire, joy, etc.—in ways that are specific to me broadens what it means to be Chinese in contemporary society.
“Hope Wang, Step 1: rid the pomelo skin of bitterness” is on view at the Chinese American Museum, 238 West 23rd, through April 14.
Greek-born Vasia Rigou is a writer, editor, and curator. Her appreciation for art began early, shaped by her family’s meticulously planned, culture-packed trips across Europe—complete with every museum stop imaginable. Much of her work, writing about visual art, design, and culture can be found at Newcity, Chicago’s leading culture publication, where she serves as editor. She also regularly contributes to Artnet News and to international magazines OnOffice and ICON. In her curatorial practice she explores themes of identity, intimacy, and belonging. You can usually find her gallery hopping around the city—occasionally with her toughest (and tiniest) critic, baby Benjamin, whose current favorite medium is finger paint. Say hi on Instagram or at rigouvasia.com.
