A satirical spirit has consistently characterized Wang's paintings which, through combinations of text and image, reflect the confusion and ambivalence of the contemporary individual amid a barrage of information. A breathtakingly virtuosic painter, Wang’s new works continue an ongoing series of meme paintings, in which the artist stunningly recreates hilarious, arcane images found on social media with an unexpected reverence for light and color that hearkens to the Impressionists.

Wang’s meme paintings directly replicate viral images that she encounters through social media. Recreating these images with stunning attention to light and color, Wang subjects these images to rigorous semiotic scrutiny, magnifying and meditating upon their cultural implications. Seemingly authorless and meant for immediate consumption, memes acquire the voice of the collective. But who is the implied speaker of each meme? Wang’s work reveals the network of assumptions, often racialized and gendered, that memes both reflect and impart so succinctly as to be instantaneous.

One can find shared gestures and thematic overlaps between Wang’s meme paintings and her earlier work. Her most recent prior series have similarly featured imagery pulled from viral content and mass media, painted with the Impressionist-influenced splendor that can be found in her newest paintings. A 2017 series replicated Facebook comment threads that the artist found online, overlaid with the of-the-moment Pussy Hats that would come to be associated with exclusionary white feminism. Another body of work focused on cryptocurrency, reveling in its trendiness and drawing a parallel to the unpredictable whims art market. By focusing on the niche, of-the-moment intricacies of an uncharted sector of finance, the works make monument to what is destined to become obsolescence, freezing and memorializing what is meant to be a blip on the stock index. Another recent series featured confessional phrases in an anonymous voice overwhelmed by the pressures of identity politics (e.g., “I just want to be a white girl”) scrawled across exquisite renderings of notorious celebrities. Again Wang explores the question of authorship as the viewer is left to wonder if these confessions are Wang’s or someone else’s. Again we find ambivalence, finding critique and compassion in the voice of her anonymous speaker.