Fou Gallery is delighted to present Through Lingering Windows, the New York debut solo exhibition by artist Ming Wang, on view from January 11 to March 8, 2025. In this exhibition, Wang captures the subtle beauty of everyday life, transforming familiar scenes into contemplative psychological landscapes that explore the intersection of memory, emotion, and the self.  Curated by Ashley Ouderkirk—curator, art writer, editor, and artist advisor—the show promises an evocative dialogue between the mundane and the extraordinary. 

For most city dwellers, daily life revolves around a familiar routine: rushing from home to work and back, rarely pausing to observe the world around us. For Wang, however, these ordinary moments—walking through familiar streets, parks, or interiors—serve as a foundation for her artistic practice. She draws on her surroundings to craft compositions that delve into our emotional connections to the mundane while seeking deeper meaning.

Originally from Shenzhen, China, and now based in New York, Wang brings an intimate understanding of the routines and landscapes of urban life to her work. Yet, she gravitates toward quiet scenes amidst the chaos, finding inspiration in architectural details, everyday objects, and small, manicured green spaces tucked away in bustling neighborhoods. Each painting is infused with an emotional resonance—loneliness, solitude, comfort, or pride—rooted in the artist’s own reflections on the scene. Wang’s artistic process begins with a photograph, taken during a walk or routine moment near her home or studio. From there, she sketches compositions that merge her mindful observations with the emotions each scene evokes. She frequently shifts details, such as changing a bright blue sky to an overcast gray or removing figures and extraneous elements, to fine-tune the emotional atmosphere. Her paintings are not direct representations but are instead reflections of her emotional relationships to the memories or imagined reinterpretations of them.

Color plays a central role in Wang’s practice, particularly her use of gray and blue. Gray tones convey a sense of heaviness and muted time, while blue—deeply inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost—evokes longing, distance, and the expansive quality of atmosphere. In Fountain (2024), pale gray skies and deep blue undertones evoke melancholy, with the off-center fountain creating a sense of unease. The delicate streams of water suggest quiet mourning, as though lamenting an unspoken tragedy.