Saito: I’ve been waiting for someone...

Cobb : Someone from a half remembered dream… to remind you of something. Something you once knew...

[the top spins without end]

Cobb : That this world is not real.

Allison Lu Wang’s subversive mixed-media paintings examine the fleeting nature of memory by creating a psychological playground featuring familiar yet elusive imagery based on architecture, technology and personal narrative. Wang presents worlds caught in suspended disbelief as she draws inspiration from the immersive reality of video games, sci-fi action  cinema and travel in her large-scale paintings. Her process weaves in and out of physical and digital space in order to create divergent worlds that experiment with impossible places and experimental depth. Simultaneously structured yet structureless, ordered yet order-less, Wang transports viewers into a visually stimulating dreamscape. 

Wang begins by sourcing images from a variety of magazines and books to find imagery that provide the basis for familiarity and place. Driven entirely by instinct cultivated from her background in design, her process relies on intuitively composing shapes, images and textures into unpredictable configurations. She spends days carefully cutting out thousands of fragments and objects to assemble into puzzle-like composites. Using the largest pieces as the anchor to create radial collages, these cut-out islands are chosen from her inventory images strictly from memory, thereby associating her compositions with retrospection. 

After days spent intertwining and constructing these found images into an arena brimming with a visual language prepared for an explorer, Wang photographs her work and digitally modifies her hand collages to accommodate more found images as well as personal photographs and a self-portrait in lieu of a signature. Adding a digital facet to her work, Wang invites dialog about digital possibilities, crystallized memories, and unreal space. By constantly experimenting with expansion and contraction, Wang creates a fluctuating cosmos that juxtaposes the real with the imagined. 

Playing with digital manipulation and scale, Wang pulls her work back into physical space by inkjet printing her digital collage onto large stretched canvases. The printed collage serves as a ready-made underpainting to complete her compositions. Using oil paint to add texture and additional depth, Wang executes a variety of techniques such as impasto, portraiture and abstractions. Inspired by the serenity of Impressionism and mid-19th century American landscape painting, Wang begins to render the delicate emotional connections to place and travel. These tender paintings redress the fragmented collages and guide viewers' gaze as they survey her world as an awaiting destination. 

Allison Lu Wang was born in Los Angeles, CA, in 1994 and received her B.F.A from the Rhode Island School of Design. She currently works and lives in West Hollywood, CA.