Evelyn Taocheng Wang at KAYOKOYUKI

Artist: Evelyn Taocheng Wang

Exhibition title: An Organic Day

Venue: KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, Japan

Date: January 13 – February 11, 2024

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

At KAYOKOYUKI, we are delighted to announce Evelyn Taocheng Wang’s second solo exhibition, titled ‘An Organic Day,’ marking her return after two years. In conjunction, she will be presenting a special performance at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum during the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2024 – 30 Ways to Go to the Moon,’. We invite you to take this opportunity to witness her work and the performance.

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, a Chinese-born artist based in the Netherlands, explores a variety of media, including painting, drawing, calligraphy, performance, and installation. Her works intricately fuse fragmented and paradoxical narratives through the lenses of memory and imagination. As an immigrant from China based in the Netherlands, Evelyn’s art is deeply rooted in her social context, addressing overarching themes such as gender, belonging, and cultural identity. Confronting these often controversial themes, she avoids simplistic binary oppositions like male/female or Western/Eastern. Instead, she approaches these issues with original and poetic humor, continuously engaging with the fundamental question of “what is the self.”

The exhibition “An Organic Day” comprises works using different materials and techniques, including oil paintings, drawings on paper and silk. It inherently reveals fundamental differences in art history between Western and Eastern paintings. However, she doesn’t present these differences in a confrontational manner but expands them to experience the potential understanding of diverse artistic identities and materials.

Pieces like the two “Dutch Window” and “Wild Black Berry Picker” may appear as traditional oil paintings on canvas, but she effortlessly transforms their texture and visual perception into the serene appearance of ink paintings on paper.

Many of her works blend transcendental and profound expressions with seemingly unrelated texts, merging emotional, poetic, and autobiographical elements. Playing with the concept of identity as a multifaceted phenomenon, she connects personal experiences with thoughts on art and art history. Confronting the theme of “what is the self,” Evelyn questions the legitimacy of segregating different forms of expression while actively embracing their coexistence.

Her depictions of “windows” and “a day,” relying solely on her memories, resonate with our individual recollections, reminding us that everyone can share a fragment of a story.

Evelyn Taocheng Wang was born in 1981, in China, and is currently living and working in Rotterdam. Evelyn studied painting in China before attending the Städelschule, Frankfurt, and was a resident artist at De Ateliers, Amsterdam from 2012-14.

Evelyn has presented her works in: solo show “An Organic Day” at KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo, 2024; “the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2024 -30 Ways to Go to the Moon” at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, 2024; solo show “HET LICHT IS ROND” at Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, 2023; solo show “An Equivocal Contrast” at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2023; “HORIZONS” at The Museum of East Asian Art in Cologne, Cologne, 2022; solo show “Four Season of Women Tragedy” at Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2022; “We, on the Rising Wave” at Busan Biennial, Busan, 2022; “Reflection Paper” at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 2021; solo show “Sour Gnossiennes” at Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 2020; solo show “When I sought her along the river, she stood in the middle of the water” at KevinSpace, Vienna, 2020; “Risquons -Tout” at WIELS, Brussels, 2020; “Globale Resistance” at Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2020; “In the Presence of Absense, Proposal for the Museum Collection” at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 2020; and solo show “Spreading Elegance” at FRAC Champagne -Ardenne, Reims, 2019. She has received the ABN AMRO Art Award (2019), Dolf Henkes Prize (2019) , Dorothea von Stetten Award, and the Volkskrant Beeldende Kunst Prize (both 2016).

Evelyn’s works have been collected by the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, FRAC Champagne-Ar-denne, Reims, Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach, Mönchengladbach, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, and Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht.

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Black Berries of Turkish Women, 2023, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Black Berries of Turkish Women, 2023, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Black Berries of Turkish Women, 2023, oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Organic Blackberry, 2023, calligraphy ink, mineral color on silk fabric, 101 x 31.5 cm (work size) / 40.1 x 108.2 cm (frame size)

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Organic Blackberry, 2023, calligraphy ink, mineral color on silk fabric, 101 x 31.5 cm (work size) / 40.1 x 108.2 cm (frame size)

Evelyn Taocheng Wang, An Organic Day, 2024, exhibition view, KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo