Freya Fang Wang (b.Beijing) is a London-based Chinese artist. She holds an MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2023), and a BA in Mural Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2010). 

Wang was a finalist for the Luxembourg Art Prize (2024), a runner-up in the STUDIO WEST NOW Introducing Open Call (2023), and was longlisted for the VAOEmerging Artist Prize (2023). She pariticipated the residency with the Good Eye Project in London (2024), and in A Brief History of Women in Art, an International Women’s Day event hosted by Pillsbury and Artfeed in London (2025). 

Her forthcoming projects include: : Night Cafe gallery, London(2026); The Roamer Project , La Colección Aldebarán, Spain (2025). Wang’s paintings are held in both private and public collections across the UK, Spain, Mainland China, and Taiwan. 

Her work has been featured in group exhibitions by galleries and curatorial projects including: Good Eye Project 2026, Saatchi Gallery, London(2026); Terra 2025 Focus – Freya Fang Wang, Apsara Studio, London, (2025); Terra 2025, Apsara Studio, France(2025); LBF Contemporary, London (2025) ; Thom Oosterhof Project, Taiwan(2025); Tiderip Gallery, London (2025); STUDIO WEST, London (2024); Chilli Art Projects, London (2024); STUDIO WEST, London (2023); Silian Gallery, London (2023); The Crypt Gallery, London (2023); Mandy Zhang Art, London(2023); The Art Pavilion, London, (2022) and Soho Revue, London (2022). 

Can you tell us about your background and how you started your artistic journey? 

I was born and raised in an art-oriented academic family in China. My father is apainter and my mother is a doctor. Growing up in this environment felt, in hindsight, like being placed in fertile soil—it quietly shaped how I began to perceive the world from a very early age. Before I could consciously understand it, I was already immersed in art and culture, and this naturally guided me toward the path I am on today. Everything unfolded quite organically, almost through osmosis. 

I completed my BA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in China. After graduation, I did not immediately define myself as an artist, but instead moved through several years working within cultural and design-related fields. During this period, I found myself increasingly drawn to more fundamental questions around perception, consciousness, and human experience. 

Alongside this, I began to read widely — from Jung and integrative psychology to Chinese traditions such as Zen Buddhism and Taoist philosophy. Rather than forming a linear progression, this became an ongoing process of inner exploration and reflection. Gradually, I also developed a deeper sensitivity toward existential questions around life and nature, which opened up an inner necessity for self-inquiry. 

Over time, I came to realise that painting was the most natural way for me to continuethis path. It offered a language that could hold both thought and sensation, as well as the subtle movements of inner experience. It was not a decision in a conventional sense, but a recognition. 

From that moment on, I understood painting not simply as a practice, but as a way of being—a lifelong commitment and a continuous space for exploring the relationship between self and world.

Your work often reflects on the connection between humans, nature, and other living beings. How do these ideas shape your approach to painting? 

These ideas sit at the core of how I understand painting itself, not only what I depict. I sense human beings as inseparable from the wider field of nature, and from the invisible forces that move through all things. 

My thinking is deeply shaped by Chinese philosophical traditions, especially Taoist thought, where life is understood as a continuous unfolding of energy—where all forms exist in relation, as part of a larger, living wholeness. Everything is already in motion, already co-existing within the same flow. 

From this perspective, painting is not a way of representing the world, but a wayof entering it. My work grows out of a desire to remain close to this sense of interconnectedness, and to soften the boundary between perception, presence, and the wider field of life. 

When I paint, the canvas is experienced as a living field rather than a surface of depiction. It becomes a space where relationships can briefly surface, breathe, and be sensed. 

Gesture, rhythm, and layering become a way of listening to this field. The image is not constructed, but gradually revealed—like a resonance already present beneath the surface. 

In this sense, painting is not about describing connection. It is about entering it—moving within the same flow in which all things are already quietly held. 

What is your creative process like? Do you follow a routine or work spontaneously? 

I describe my approach as a form of meditative painting. My process is guided by intuition and the subconscious. I do not begin with a pre-planned image; instead, I allow the painting itself to lead. 

When I begin, I enter a state of focused attention and trust, allowing the work to unfold without forcing direction. Working primarily with acrylic and oil pastel, I build layers that gradually form an energetic field across the canvas. 

Each gesture responds to what is already present. The painting develops through this ongoing exchange — movement, layering, and adjustment —rather than a fixed composition or predetermined outcome. 

The process unfolds over time. Each return to the canvas involves re-enteringits rhythm, sensing its structure, tension, and internal relationships, and continuing from within that field.

At certain moments, the boundary between myself and the work becomes less distinct. The painting is no longer separate, but formed within the same unfolding process. 

As the work approaches completion, I listen closely. The end is not imposed, but recognised—when the elements settle into coherence and the painting begins to hold itself. 

Who or what are your biggest influences, both artistically and personally?

Informed by Chinese philosophical thought, to which I am deeply connected through its long continuum of ancient wisdom, my work is grounded in the culture I come from. From this ground, my practice initially emerges, and continues to shape howI understand perception, presence, and the continuous relationship between self and the world. 

Within a contemporary art context, I find strong resonance in artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Mark Rothko. Frankenthaler ’ s intuitive and open approach to painting—particularly her emphasis on gesture, flow, and material responsiveness—closely aligns with my own working process. Rothko’s large-scale color fields and the powerful sense of atmosphere they generate have remained a lasting source of fascination. 

In my early years, reading Italo Calvino shaped how I began to perceive the world from within, rather than seeking answers externally. Alongside this, the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti opened an important space of reflection, while Carl Jung’s work introduced a pathway into psychology and the unconscious, initiating a deeper process of self-inquiry. These experiences gradually formed an inner orientation toward perception, consciousness, and the relationship between inner and outer worlds. 

Painting has become inseparable from this process. Over time, I have come to understand it as a kind of channel—both a way of speaking inwardly and a way of engaging with the world. It is not only an artistic practice, but also a continuous method of inner investigation. 

What do you hope people take away from your art when they experience it?

I hope viewers can enter a different kind of attentiveness when they encounter my work—something slower, more open, and receptive. 

My paintings are not intended to deliver a fixed message, but to create an open field or atmosphere that people can inhabit in their own way. This field can hold whatever may arise, allowing each viewer’s experience to unfold differently. Within it, I hope they might sense a connection — between themselves, the natural world, and something larger and more fluid that is difficult to name. 

Perhaps there is a moment of pause, where perception becomes more porous and awareness quietly expands. Some may find themselves staying longer than expected, gradually entering the painting without fully knowing why—an experience of quiet immersion in something alive and expansive. 

From there, I hope the work opens toward a deeper awareness of interconnectedness, where the boundaries between the self and the surrounding world become more fluid. In that moment, there can be a subtle sense of flow, oneness, and shared presence, while each viewer remains free to form their own interpretation. 

What challenges have you faced as an artist, and how have you overcome them? 

One of the ongoing dimensions of my practice is the presence of uncertainty, which is inseparable from an intuitive way of working that unfolds over time. Each painting develops gradually over weeks, without a fixed outcome at the beginning, requiring me to remain within a shifting and responsive field. 

Over time, this has evolved into a continuous organic negotiation between control and surrender. It has become a condition I work with — a deeper mode of awareness, where the impulse to control is recognised, held, and gradually transformed within the process itself. 

In this sense, my practice has formed a self-sustaining organic cycle. Through repeated engagement, release, and return, the work develops its own internal continuity. What once appeared unstable has become a structure of ongoing transformation, where uncertainty is not an obstacle, but part of its generative logic. 

Each work evolves through repeated returns over time, where I re-enter its state and continue from where it previously left off. This rhythm allows the painting to accumulate and unfold within its own logic, rather than following a linear trajectory. 

My practice is therefore less about overcoming internal tension, and more about a sustained, naturally emerging state of awareness — where control, surrender, and perception coexist and continuously transform each other. Through this process, painting and self-exploration remain deeply intertwined, entering a deeper dimension, no longer separate but part of the same evolving system.

Text and photo courtesy of Freya Fang Wang

Website: https://freyafangwang.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freyafangwang