Like a traditional Chinese handscroll, Witches are Flowers Sis stretches horizontally across twenty-five feet of paper and silk. The work depicts seemingly disparate subjects on a single picture plane, such as scenes of violence against women alongside abstract botanical motifs. Wang also incorporates short written texts, some of which describe her experiences as a transgender woman and a Chinese-born immigrant living abroad in the Netherlands. Borrowing from the ancient Chinese calligraphic practice of narrative image-making, Wang summons these vignettes of text and imagery almost like a spell. Conceived, according to the artist and as referenced in the title, under the symbolic power of witches, this work represents a call for the protection of bodily autonomy for women and genderqueer people.

Gallery label from

2023

Medium Ink, watercolor, gouache, acrylic and pencil on paper and silk scroll
Dimensions overall: 19 × 495 1/4" (48.3 × 1258 cm); composition: 19 × 314 15/16" (48.3 × 800 cm)
Credit Fund for the Twenty-First Century
Object number 212.2023
Department Drawings and Prints

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