SHU WANG
BIO
Shu Wang is an interdisciplinary artist born in China and currently based in New York. She works across sculpture, installation, and wearable art, focusing on the body as a site where emotion, structure, and social tension intersect. Her practice explores how interaction, movement, and proximity can transform an object into a living medium that connects people and evokes shared perception.
She initially studied Nonmetallic Inorganic Material Engineering at the University of Science and Technology Beijing before transferring to the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she earned her BFA in Jewelry and Metal Design. She later received her MFA in Fashion, Body, and Garment from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under artist Nick Cave. Her diverse background informs her interdisciplinary approach, encouraging her to merge material experimentation, digital fabrication, and emotional resonance. Her work has been exhibited in Portal: Rockaway (by 4heads at Rockaway Artist Alliance, New York, 2025), Pause·Sip·Breathe(Flowing Space, New York, 2025), Dream Machine (UrbanGlass, New York Jewelry Week, 2024), By Degree III (Project Space of Chicago Sculpture International, Chicago, 2024), Romanian Jewelry Week 2022 represented by ArtsThread, etc
Artist StatementMy work originates from reactions, emotions, and expectations, reflecting the ambivalent relationship I have as a woman and as an individual with the world around me. From an early awareness of how one is expected to behave, to the quiet negotiations of what it means to be perceived as “good,” I became sensitive to the unspoken rules that shape visibility and acceptance. While society operates within its own rigid forms and expectations, my personal shape does not always align, creating a tension between expression and conformity.
The emotions and thoughts born from this tension transform into responses that take form through my art. The body becomes the center of this process, both as a vessel of emotion and as tangible evidence of presence. It allows me to translate what cannot be easily spoken into movement, touch, and material form.
I am drawn to interaction because it allows the work to breathe. When a person wears, touches, or simply approaches a piece, the object begins to respond. The wearable, for me, is not an end but a beginning. It is the simplest way for an object to encounter a body, to invite awareness, to generate intimacy. Through these encounters, the boundary between self and other, maker and viewer, begins to dissolve, and the work becomes a shared moment of perception.
I am interested in how structure and emotion coexist, how materials are activated through proximity and touch rather than by their substance alone. My creative process is an ongoing calibration between control and release. I am learning to trust intuition, to let chance and vulnerability shape the work. What I seek is the moment when gesture becomes connection, when the act of wearing or touching transforms both object and person, and presence itself becomes the art.
我的创作源于反应、情绪与期待，映照出我作为女性与个体，对周围世界所怀有的复杂关系。
从很早开始，我就意识到人们被期待着以某种方式行事，也学会在沉默中与“被认为是好的”之间不断协商。我因此对那些支配着可见与被接受的无形规则变得格外敏感。
当社会以既定的形状与期待运作时，我自身的形状却并不总能契合。这种错位在表达与顺从之间制造出持续的张力，也成为我创作探索的起点。
源自这种张力的情绪与思考，逐渐化为艺术中的回应与呈现。身体是这一过程的核心，既是情感的载体，也是我在世界中存在的证据。它让我得以将那些无法言说的感受，转化为动作、触觉与物质的形态。
我被互动所吸引，因为它让作品能够呼吸。当人们穿戴、触碰，或仅仅靠近一件作品时，物件便开始回应。对我而言，可穿戴的形式并非终点，而是一种起点。它是物件与身体最直接相遇的方式，能够自然地引发亲密与感知的觉察。通过这些相遇，自我与他者、创作者与观看者之间的界限开始消融，作品在共享的感知中被完成。
我关注结构与情感如何并存，材料如何在接近与触碰中被激活，而非仅由其本质所定义。我的创作过程是一种在掌控与放开的之间不断校准。我学习去信任直觉，让偶然与脆弱参与到创作中。我所寻找的，是那一刻的生成，当动作成为连接，当触碰或佩戴的行为同时改变了物件与人，而“在场”本身成为艺术。
Shu Wang is an interdisciplinary artist born in China and currently based in New York. She works across sculpture, installation, and wearable art, focusing on the body as a site where emotion, structure, and social tension intersect. Her practice explores how interaction, movement, and proximity can transform an object into a living medium that connects people and evokes shared perception.
She initially studied Nonmetallic Inorganic Material Engineering at the University of Science and Technology Beijing before transferring to the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she earned her BFA in Jewelry and Metal Design. She later received her MFA in Fashion, Body, and Garment from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under artist Nick Cave. Her diverse background informs her interdisciplinary approach, encouraging her to merge material experimentation, digital fabrication, and emotional resonance. Her work has been exhibited in Portal: Rockaway (by 4heads at Rockaway Artist Alliance, New York, 2025), Pause·Sip·Breathe(Flowing Space, New York, 2025), Dream Machine (UrbanGlass, New York Jewelry Week, 2024), By Degree III (Project Space of Chicago Sculpture International, Chicago, 2024), Romanian Jewelry Week 2022 represented by ArtsThread, etc
Artist StatementMy work originates from reactions, emotions, and expectations, reflecting the ambivalent relationship I have as a woman and as an individual with the world around me. From an early awareness of how one is expected to behave, to the quiet negotiations of what it means to be perceived as “good,” I became sensitive to the unspoken rules that shape visibility and acceptance. While society operates within its own rigid forms and expectations, my personal shape does not always align, creating a tension between expression and conformity.
The emotions and thoughts born from this tension transform into responses that take form through my art. The body becomes the center of this process, both as a vessel of emotion and as tangible evidence of presence. It allows me to translate what cannot be easily spoken into movement, touch, and material form.
I am drawn to interaction because it allows the work to breathe. When a person wears, touches, or simply approaches a piece, the object begins to respond. The wearable, for me, is not an end but a beginning. It is the simplest way for an object to encounter a body, to invite awareness, to generate intimacy. Through these encounters, the boundary between self and other, maker and viewer, begins to dissolve, and the work becomes a shared moment of perception.
I am interested in how structure and emotion coexist, how materials are activated through proximity and touch rather than by their substance alone. My creative process is an ongoing calibration between control and release. I am learning to trust intuition, to let chance and vulnerability shape the work. What I seek is the moment when gesture becomes connection, when the act of wearing or touching transforms both object and person, and presence itself becomes the art.
我的创作源于反应、情绪与期待，映照出我作为女性与个体，对周围世界所怀有的复杂关系。
从很早开始，我就意识到人们被期待着以某种方式行事，也学会在沉默中与“被认为是好的”之间不断协商。我因此对那些支配着可见与被接受的无形规则变得格外敏感。
当社会以既定的形状与期待运作时，我自身的形状却并不总能契合。这种错位在表达与顺从之间制造出持续的张力，也成为我创作探索的起点。
源自这种张力的情绪与思考，逐渐化为艺术中的回应与呈现。身体是这一过程的核心，既是情感的载体，也是我在世界中存在的证据。它让我得以将那些无法言说的感受，转化为动作、触觉与物质的形态。
我被互动所吸引，因为它让作品能够呼吸。当人们穿戴、触碰，或仅仅靠近一件作品时，物件便开始回应。对我而言，可穿戴的形式并非终点，而是一种起点。它是物件与身体最直接相遇的方式，能够自然地引发亲密与感知的觉察。通过这些相遇，自我与他者、创作者与观看者之间的界限开始消融，作品在共享的感知中被完成。
我关注结构与情感如何并存，材料如何在接近与触碰中被激活，而非仅由其本质所定义。我的创作过程是一种在掌控与放开的之间不断校准。我学习去信任直觉，让偶然与脆弱参与到创作中。我所寻找的，是那一刻的生成，当动作成为连接，当触碰或佩戴的行为同时改变了物件与人，而“在场”本身成为艺术。
Contact: s.shu.wang96@gmail.com