Reviews
Suling Wang
Victoria Miro, East End
By Martin Coomer
By employing battalions of marks, drips and figurative elements, Taiwanese artist Suling Wang creates fluid, decorative paintings that refer to fluency in more than one tongue and suggest mistrust of any single version of events. Since she's a bit of a magpie - as well as referring to Abstract Expressionism and Op-art, she seems to have co-opted the motifs and styles of half a dozen contemporary artists - this method is a good way of covering her tracks. The four large paintings on show follow a similar recipe. Thick lines meander drips, made when the canvas was turned on its side, appear to flow horizontally; and sections of Bridget Riley-esque patterning dissolve into jagged stipples and multicoloured sprays redolent of waterfalls and rock pools. Interweaved are more delicate confections (abstract areas swathed with thin lines that make them appear three-dimensional) and bits of figuration (actual rivers painted alongside flowing abstraction, for example) that sometimes close the loop of recognition.
You'll either love the promiscuity and potential of these pieces or long for the artist to be more decisive - to quit having it both ways. For my money, the paintings could do with greater contrasts in scale and finesse; although 'treasures', such as a palm tree or a naked couple, are secreted in the work, they don't always repay close scrutiny. An interesting playing field, nonetheless.