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Augustina Wang
Augustina Wang (born New York, NY. 1999) is a Chinese-American painter with a BFA in painting from the Rhode School of Design [1. ] Her work explores her Asian femme identity through world-building, where she offers a place for Asian women to feel empowered and seen through her portrayal of “feminine rage” [2 ]. She is fuelled by the stereotypes of her historically marginalised identity and painful experiences from her past [2 ]. Her work reappropriates traditional masculine and racist motifs in art [3 ], showing the juxtaposition of women being simultaneously strong and able, as well as soft and beautiful, this is done with her ethereal style of painting with common symbolism's of swords, guns and armour.

Biography
Wang was born in 1999, raised in Flushing, Queens in New York, into a first generation, Chinese immigrant family, brought up by her single mum [2 ][4. ]

As a young Asian-American girl, there wasn’t many communities that she felt she could be a part of, feeling neither Chinese-enough, nor American-enough. This was isolating for her so she found refuge in video games, anime, role-playing blogs, and fan fiction sites [2 ][3. ] These online forums and websites helped her to build her identity and later be the inspiration for her art work.

They allowed her to take agency and freedom of expression in a body that was otherwise marginalised [1 ]. “Role-playing” has been a big part of Wang’s life, as she has always enjoyed creating characters and stories, whether it be her own or part of some Internet subculture. She finds it empowering using these characters as “proxies”, especially when it comes to healing traumas [2 ].

Wang found this ability of coping and healing through her painting after coming out of the COVID pandemic and outing a sexual abuser while in isolation, she had to rebuild herself, her body, ego and spirit [2 ]. This method/art practice continued into her most recent project “For Glory and For Love” that was exhibited at “Sow & Tailor” April 15th 2023 until May 13th 2023 [5 ].

Artistic Work
Wang is a painter that uses a range of mediums, from oil paintings to soft pastels on canvas to present an alternate reality that challenges traditional views on race and gender, through vivid figurative paintings [6 ].

Her work explores her asian femme identity through lore and world-building. She considers painting as a way to allow her to “role-play” power, a force that is seemingly unobtainable to her as a first-generation, Chinese-American woman. She is inspired by her childhood self, a girl who browsed roleplaying blogs, fan fiction forums, and video game sites as a way to feel a sense of community. Wang sees role-play and therefore painting as a way to heal her trauma [4 ].

Her style is heavily influenced by nostalgia, paying homage to vintage anime and manga, video games, and fan art. She is fascinated by the idea of the meta-human, or the neo-human, and avatars [2 ]. This is seen in her paintings as they reflect a certain glow and ethereal feel with saturated colours, in unknown, otherworldly settings, with fantastical characters.

Wang is also inspired by her mother, an immigrant single mum, whose life experience echoes her daughter’s, despite the difference in time and age [4 ].

"For Glory and For Love"
Augustina’s first solo exhibition, For Glory and For Love, was a triumph of talent as she explored her interest in the idea of ‘power’ and all of it’s forms, settling between outer and inner strength [3 ]. “Glory” is an overt power, or strength that comes from combat or conquest: “love” is softer, but an instinctual innate power. A big part of this show is illustrating that these types of powers are equal, and the soft and gentle possess as much strength as the hard and worn, and some or all beings can possess both simultaneously [2 ].

There is lots of symbolism, such as, weaponry and armour. She references swords, which are violent but can be adorned and decorated into an object of beauty. Armour is a symbol of war without it being a violent object itself, as it is meant to protect not attack, and can be adorned and etched [2 ].