Artist channels childhood memories into dreamlike paintings

Growing up in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, ink artist Wang Yiya says her childhood was filled with relaxation and the warmth of visiting historical pavilions, temples, pagodas and garden residences in her hometown. She enjoyed being lost in the passages and rooms of these sites, where the deities and fair ladies in the wall paintings would often calm her down.

Wang was nourished by the experiences of her early years and the celestial world constructed by those ancient buildings along with the decorative arts inside. She expressed these feelings by picking up brush pens to construct a dreamy, surreal world.

Her ink paintings, with their fine lines and elegant hues, are now on display at In Blooming Splendor, an exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, in which Wang meditates on the duality of the real and unreal, the beautiful and the fragile.