Wanying Liang
Bio
Wanying Liang explores complex emotions, misreading, ritual, and mystery in sculptures and vessels. She was born in China and lived in Jingdezhen after getting her BFA in CAFA, Beijing. Then, she moved to the US and earned her MFA at Alfred University. Now, she is a studio artist in Hornell, NY.
Artist Statement
When making this series of works-Woman as Vessel, I live in a rural area of the northeastern United States which is about 11,600 kilometers away from my hometown and my family. Life here often reminds me of my childhood life in China’s countryside. Especially in the early summer, I often wander in my backyard and observe the wild flowers and weeds. I am astonished at their structure and diversity, feel like I am back to my childhood.
I like flowers, probably influenced by my mother. When we come across with a tree full of flowers in a routine after-dinner walk, she is so delightful and always asks me to take photos of her by the flower tree. My mother's happiness definitely affects me, because of her role in the family. She cooks for us, three meals a day. I believe that the day a family enjoys their meals won’t be a too bad day. Before I get married, my mother's effort on daily meals was transparent to me. I was so used to my mother's daily cooking since I was a child, as if it is the most normal thing in life, just like those tableware in our house often get ignored. Now and then, my mother makes dumplings for us which takes at least two to three hours, although we always finish them so quickly while watching TV or causally chatting. She asks us every time: are dumplings delicious today? Even though we always answer her perfunctorily, a short Yes, she is satisfied. This is probably our most ordinary day.
After I moved to the United States, I miss my mother's cook a lot. Things that were very common in the past become my biggest eagerness now. These series of work remind me that mothers’ daily transparent effort becomes the flowers that slowly bloom one by one in their children's memory. Let them suddenly realize that their ordinary past also steps on flowers full of their mothers’ blessing. They just need to keep turning the clay into flowers to accompany them through life. So, in this series of work, I intended to make the vessels complicated to feel more important and it might have a bit of ritual sense, too. I guess that I just want to remind myself to treasure those neglected daily life.
When I was young, I often secretly thought: why did my mom give birth to me? This is such a bad deal. After a mother has a child, her body undergoes permanent changes, and she will also face a new and heavy job which she can never quit. And this unusually hard work has never been appreciated enough by the society, let alone rewards. Many women have bravely decided to reject this job. They do not want to obey to the social conventions. They determine to be responsible for their own lives. But whether they would have children or not, women's bodies have been prepared for giving birth since they are very young. I have severe PMS and have been suffering from it once a month since my teens. Although I have visited different doctors and tried many methods, this pain has been with me uninterruptedly for more than ten years. I hated my body and this meaningless pain. I even hated my own gender role. The sense of shame always arises insidiously when I must tell others the reason of my pale face and arched back is because of the pain of menstruation when I was young. Since teenage, most women always try to understand why their bodies sometimes do not just belong to themselves but also have to become a container and provider of "others". They need to share their own bodies with their child (another human being) for a while (9 months). It's always a bit scary, right? As a woman, I still can't understand this life process easily. Sometimes I use flowers and seeds to imagine this relationship. It seems it can help me to accept the natural setting of a woman's body more naturally.
In short, when making these works, I was immersed in the thought of the identity of "Mom". Of course, I was not advocating the concept that women must have children. I was just thinking about the identity of a mother in a family and how a woman could understand that her body could be used as a container of a life. I hope, flowers, could tell me the answer gently.
Exhibitions
