Melissa Wang - Works: Without the stars, there would be no us; 2021; 91" x 158" (installation); wood, mirror, mylar, foil, copper pipes & The largesse of red stars; 36" x 48"; acrylic on canvas
Artist Statement:
My works are intimate meditations on life in the cosmos. In the vein of speculative feminism, my visual arrangements and mark-making contemplate the “art of living on a damaged planet” (Anne Tsing). I created my installation: Without the stars, there would be no us at a time when human supremacy is not only surfacing vast societal inequities in how we value life on this planet, but making it inhabitable.
Mirror sculptures on mylar grids reference the farsighted view of Lee Bul’s Civitas Solis II, modeling proportions of time and space that the average citizen can only dream of, while demarcating the longings and limits of our civilization. Within this installation, the painting The largesse of red stars speculates on the end of heliocentrism in our solar system - and life on Earth as we would know it. These encounters explore the banality of human exceptionalism in a universe where our lives are cosmic dust. Will we long for Earth only when it's gone? Who will we become when we are forced to venture out into space?
