Inside the Studio: Alex Z. Wang
- Art Dealer Street
- Oct 7
- 7 min read
Step inside the color-swept world of painter Alex Z. Wang, where New York’s pulse becomes gesture, memory becomes movement, and abstraction becomes a felt experience. In this exclusive Art Dealer Street interview, Alex opens up about the “emotional architecture” that anchors his practice—how city light, film, and dance shape his brushwork; why titles arrive like flashes of insight; and what it means to balance intention with intuition. From early training in China to hard-won freedom in New York, from intimate studio rituals to the electricity of independent art fairs, Alex traces the arc of a career in motion. Settle in and enjoy this thoughtful conversation with an artist who paints what we feel before we can name it.
Read on to learn more in an exclusive interview with Alex Z. Wang :
1. Your work often explores the “emotional architecture” of urban life. How does the city of New York influence your visual language and the emotional atmosphere in your paintings?
Where do I start… it’s the city light, the last glimpse of the sun as night arrives, and the heat and energy from the never-ending crowd. I don’t think about this often because NYC is so embedded in me. And I know it shows, because when I exhibit outside New York, so many people have commented, “Your art is so New York.”
2. You’ve described your practice as a meditation on movement and memory. In what ways has your background in observing contemporary dance and film informed your brushwork and compositional rhythm?
Dance and cinema have the ability of creating a space and conveying a mood in solidarity. You are sitting there with many other people, but you are also there alone, one-on-one with the piece. It creates a magical moment where you can be really introspective and allow yourself to let go and be moved. And that’s what I want my paintings to convey as well.
It may sound silly, but sometimes I do dance moves as I paint as well. Think of an adagio with a brush in hand.
3. Abstraction in your paintings carries a deep emotional resonance. How do you approach the challenge of making intangible concepts like sensation or transition visible through color and texture?
Colors and textures have profound psychological effects and influences on people. To me, it’s not about design, but about authentically reflecting my feelings at the moment of painting. I follow my emotions as I paint, choosing colors and textures instinctively. And I hope that carries through to the viewers as well.
4. You’ve exhibited at art fairs around the world—from Paris to Santa Fe to Miami. What draws you to fairs like Clio, and how have these platforms shaped the way you present and connect with your audience?
I like Clio because of its intimacy and thoughtful curation. It’s not overwhelming at all, and you get to engage with the collectors and fellow artists in a deep, meaningful way. In fact, several artists in the same edition have become my close friends, and we’ve kept visiting each other since.
Each art fair is different, and what’s most interesting to me is to treat each one as a research lab—what resonates, what immediately draws attention, and what the broader city’s energy feels like. Each fair presents an opportunity for me to test my work and refine my understanding of the audience, and in turn they enrich my work.
5. Your paintings balance gesture and restraint, intention and spontaneity. Can you walk us through your process in the studio—do you begin with sketches, or do you dive directly into the canvas?
My work process is very intuitive and just follows the flow. For my abstract work, they are almost never planned. I often start with a color palette and build the form as I go. Sometimes, I even just squeeze the colors out of the tube directly onto the canvas, and see what happens as I mix and move them directly with brushes and palette knives.
Interestingly, my figurative work (I do black-and-white figurative as well) is much more precise, especially with the tone and shade. There’s meticulous planning and execution, and some of these paintings take months, which is probably why I don’t have many.
6. “ChromaFlux” and “Memento Mori” are recent exhibitions with poetic titles. How do themes like impermanence, clarity, and reflection show up in your work—and how do you choose titles for your series?
Sometimes the title comes instinctively and even before the series starts. For example, the newest series I debuted in NYC is called Deep State. It came to me like a spark—the deep state of inner mind—which is the perfect reflection of the large-scale color-field paintings I wanted to make. It’s also attention-grabbing as it’s so overused politically, but my paintings are not about politics at all.
Sometimes I need to consult ChatGPT lol. Celestial Vision was named after I threw on a number of abstracts and asked ChatGPT to name the series. There’s a visual thread connecting them but I couldn’t quite articulate it. But ChatGPT uncovered that thread right away :).
My upcoming series is going to be called Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall. It’s another one that just popped in my head, suiting the reflective and introspective state I’m in right now.
7. You studied at Luxun Academy and later refined your techniques in NYC institutions. How has this blend of Eastern and Western artistic education impacted your aesthetic or philosophy?
The East (back in the 90s) and the West indeed are very different. The Eastern training was very much like: you have to follow the instructions from the teachers every single step. And your work is good and done when it is very close to the demonstration. Even when the assignment was “draw something from your imagination,” you were still judged by how realistic that imagination is.
My Western training, interestingly, still very much focused on techniques. But there’s an abundance of diversity in how you leverage that technique. You can be drawing from the same set from still life, and convey very different outcomes, and it’s tolerated. Later on, my training became pursuing what I was interested in, and the teacher and fellow artists are there to enable and support you. That’s when I feel like I truly blossomed.
I’m grateful for my Eastern education as it built a solid foundation and gave me the basics of the language of art, and it is the Western education that gave me true confidence and freedom.
8. You’ve participated in multiple Clio Art Fairs. What has your experience been like working with these independent art platforms, and what role do you think they play in supporting emerging voices?
Clio Art Fair was the very first art fair that reached out to me. It gave me the confidence and permission to “officially” enter the stage, with my own curation and artistic choice. “The Art World” can still be very opaque and these independent art platforms play such an important role in providing emerging artists a playground to gain exposure, test out ideas, make connections, and gain feedback. Sales can be a cherry on top but the experience is so much more than just sales.
9. Your statement describes painting as a “dialogue between intention and intuition.” How do you know when a painting is finished—or when it’s time to step away and let the work breathe?
I usually push as far as I can in one session, but step away every now and then throughout the process. The decision of when a piece finishes is made on a different day—when I had time and space away from it, and looking at it again gives me the right mindset to make the call.
I try not to linger with most pieces, as there’s always “one more stroke” you can put on. The decision of pulling yourself away and calling it done is an art itself.
10. What’s next in your journey? Are there any upcoming projects, residencies, or conceptual directions you’re excited to explore in 2025 and beyond?
I am excited to head to a number of art fairs in the next few months—The Other Art Fair in Chicago, The Super Fair in DC, and CONTEXT and Aqua Miami (with Alessandro Berni Gallery). I’ll also have my own room at Satellite Art Show in Miami, where I get to curate the entire experience for the audience and activate more senses than just visual, which I’m quite excited about.
I’m also doing two residences with GlogauAIR from Berlin and School of Visual Arts in NYC in the next few months. In which I want to challenge myself and push my boundaries—first, I’d like to create something raw and “ugly.” I always receive “beautiful” as a common comment to my work, and I’m interested in pushing myself to create something unusual and a lot more visceral. Secondly, I haven’t done much with mixed media and want to build a new body of work with this new language to me.
Thank you for stepping into Alex Z. Wang’s studio with us. His paintings carry the hum of the city and the hush of reflection—proof that intention and intuition can share the same canvas. We hope this conversation stays with you the next time a color, a rhythm, or a fragment of light shifts how you feel in a space. Keep an eye out for Alex’s upcoming series and fair presentations, and stay tuned to Art Dealer Street for more Inside the Studio features.
You can learn more about Alex Z. Wang and his work via these links:
Website: @Alex Z. Wang Instagram: @alexzwang
Artsy: @Alex Z. Wang
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