Shulan Wang
“Golden Dreams” exists between the ebb and flow of being and nothingness, where dreams offer balance between rationality and sensibility: 'I fantasize, I exist; I dream, I exist.’ Golden Dreams was born of the spirit’s eternal need for sanctuary, which hopes to repair the rift between past and present.
The gold accents on top of the black and white photographs express the tension of dreams in life, including illusion and reality, spiritual and bodily, brightness and darkness, destruction and reconstruction, and harmony and disharmony、Yin (negative) and Yang (positive).
The combination of modern photography and traditional Chinese gold powder painting provides a blurred feeling between past and present, balancing the conflict between delicate, gentle craftsmanship and calm, objective photographic techniques.
Digital photography was often considered to be infinitely copyable, Shulan subverted this notion. By printing photographic works on Chinese rice paper and applying gold powder by hand, each piece bears a singular paper texture and distinct brushstrokes. Technically, she has broken through the boundaries between digital photography and the handmade darkroom, allowing objective photography to possess the freedom and variability of painting within the container of ideas.
Shulan Wang is a fine art photographer hailing from Hangzhou, China. She holds an M.A. in Photography from Spéos International School of Photography, an M.A. from the University of Westminster, and a B.A. from the China Academy of Art. Employing innovative creative approaches, she integrates a variety of techniques—digital darkroom processing, the soft immediacy of Polaroid, paper textures, visual installation, and the emerging language of artificial intelligence photography —each medium a thread in her visual tapestry. Rooted in the timeless motifs of time and nature, she turns her lens into a translator, rendering the quiet tension and profound resonance of life visible through every frame.
Golden Dreams #1, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #3, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #4, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #12, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #13, 2023, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #1, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #1, 2023, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #7, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #6, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting
Golden Dreams #10, 2022, photography on rice paper, gold powder painting