Wei WENG | Air Hunter / Heir Hunter | 04 - 27 July 2024
Wei WENG | Installation | Photo: Void_Melbourne
| L | Prototype In Becoming A Better Ringleader, 2023 | Lacquerware, wires, chain Assemblage 275 cm x 18cm x 8cm | R | Freight Fright Fight Flight, 2024 Lacquer, eggshells, wood, wire, wire rack Assemblage dimension approx. 160 cm x 120 cm x 8 cm
Oh The Places You’ll Go 2024 Lacquerware, paper maché, wire, black plant prop trainer Assemblage dimension approx. 120cm x 30cm x 15cm
| L | Heiress III 2024 | Eggshell inlay, eggshell, lacquer, paint, wire 70cm x 30cm 30cm | R | Heiress II 2024 | Lacquerware, hot air balloon nylon fabric, bamboo, paper maché, wire Assemblage dimension approx. 250cm x 60cm x 60cm
Heiress I 2024 | Lacquerware, hot air balloon nylon fabric, wood, paper, wire Assemblage dimension approx 275cm x 150cm x 150cm
Heiress I 2024 ( detail )
| L | Pace of Ambition 2024 | Digital print on photo rag paper 110 cm x 85cm | R | Untitled Plant Study I 2024 Lacquerware, eggshell, wood | Untitled Plant Study II 2024 Plastic bottles, eggshell inlay, mirrors, paint, lacquer, wood stand | Untitled Plant Study III 2024 Lacquerware, eggshell, wood stand
Erasure of Ambition 2024 Digital print on photo rag paper 60cm x 43cm
Air Hunter/Heir Hunter
Wei WENG
Void_Melbourne
04 - 27 July 2024
空气猎人/遗产继承者猎人
翁唯
Void_墨尔本
2024年7月4日 - 七月27日
Air Hunter/Heir Hunter is a tale of cross pollination between two cities, at Void_Melbourne (July 2024) and RPS Paperoles Kyoto (August 2024) created by Chinese artist Wei Weng.
Central to Weng’s double act is the task of visualizing the feeling of human ambition, and captures its airborne dimensions. While the feeling of beastly ambition can arrest and consume the human psyche, the artist's humble task is to oppose this energy. She digs into local and digital materials to portray for the viewer, a dormant beast.
The anchoring point for Air Hunter/Heir Hunter is a photograph titled Pace of Ambition, taken inside a hot air balloon at dusk during a recent visit to San Miguel del Allende (Mexico). For the artist, this encounter in darkness had likened her perception of ambition to the invisible flow, inflating within a snoozing carrier. Sticking to this airborne delight, for her exhibitions in Melbourne and Kyoto, the artist dedicates Air Hunter/Heir Hunter to a fictional Danish botanist Dr. Elyas Nicolas Jean-Baptiste whose mother is Moroccan and father is from Martinique. At Void_Melbourne, the artist transforms hot air balloon envelopes into old fashioned heiresses, re-appropriates lacquerware from museum digital archives, plots a new garden variety out of lacquered paper maché, and adorns building materials with transformed eggshells configurations.
As this perception of ambition moves with the artist from a wintery Melbourne to a heat-struck Kyoto, the Air Hunter/Heir Hunter will manifest in different transfigurations, all of which cumulating towards new visual fables in a namesake publication, the last of Weng’s trilogy investigating perceptions of human thrill seeking, to be edited by her long time collaborator Jan Rosseel (Rotterdam) in the fall of 2024.
Wei Weng (b. 1981, Nanning, China) graduated from California College of Arts (MFA 2005). She develops long-term projects by researching and applying symbols and techniques from photography, lacquerware and speculative fiction writing. Her focus on the cross-over between visual art, crafts, and literature is shaped by formative years living in China, Pakistan, Malawi, Switzerland, and USA. Her recent art book publications on human thrill seeking including Water Refuge (2023) and Eat A Chili (2021) has been shortlisted for Athens Photography Festival (2024) and Singapore Photography Festival (2023), are also available through Printed Matter (NYC) and Perimeter Books. In June 2023 the artist moved with her family from Copenhagen to Melbourne, her studio is based in Abbotsford, VIC.