Photo: Joe Kramm
Oslo-based ceramicist Lin Wang (Chinese, b. 1985) produces large-scale still life installations and sculptural assemblages which investigate the corporeality and historic resonance of porcelain. Over centuries, porcelain's combination of a kaolin-rich white clay body with deep cobalt glazes has registered the ongoing effects of contact and trade, as well as the phantasmic projections of a long-standing dialog between East and West. As an artist working between China and Norway, Wang’s interest in this interchange holds personal significance, tinged by her own wanderlust, homesickness, and experiences of cultural discovery.
Since 2016, Wang has explored these themes through a cycle of exhibitions, video works, performances, and workshops titled Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstanding. As a group, these works intersperse the iconography of traditional blue-and-white chinaware with imagery of sailors’ tattoos, Buddhist and Christian religious deities, and the fantastic creatures populating the terra incognita of early maps. Wang engages these varied histories, combining her own experiences as ceramicist and tattoo artist, traveler and immigrant, fantasist and materialist. Her craft-based interdisciplinary practice is structured by the many forms of sculptural tableaus (the scroll, the folding screen, the still life arrangement) — artistic scenarios rife with complex interactions between personal objects, symbols of status, reminders of mortality, and allegorical stand-ins. Throughout, the delicate materiality and translucence of porcelain — which itself summons comparison with bone and skin — is refigured not only as canvas but as a quasi-corporeal body, marked by the ambitions of commerce and the aftermath of empire.
Wang received a bachelor’s degree in sculpture from the China Academy of Art and a master’s degree in fine art from the University of Bergen. Her central research project Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings consists of an ongoing series of exhibitions over the past decade. In 2019, as part of the research for this project, she produced two solo exhibitions at the Kunsthall Grenland and the Vigeland Museum. She has completed numerous public commissions, including for the Hammerfest Hospital, Sarpsborg Library, and Tønsberg Courthouse. Her work is included in the collections of the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Oslo Kommune, Porsgrunn Kommune, and the National Museum, Oslo, Norway.
Oslo-based ceramicist Lin Wang produces large-scale still life installations and sculptural assemblages which investigate the corporeality and historic resonance of porcelain. Over centuries, porcelain’s combination of a kaolin-rich white clay body with deep cobalt glazes has registered the ongoing effects of contact and trade, as well as the phantasmic projections of a long-standing dialog between East and West. As an artist working between China and Norway, Wang’s interest in this interchange holds personal significance, tinged by her own wanderlust, homesickness, and experiences of cultural discovery. Since 2016, Wang has explored these themes through a cycle of exhibitions, video works, performances, and workshops titled Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstanding.
EDUCATION
2016
MA in Fine Art, Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB), Bergen, Norway
2008
BA in Sculpture, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025
True Romance, HB381, New York, NY
2022
Still Life, Trøndelag Senter for Samtidskunst, Trondheim, Norway
2020–21
Exotic Dreams Tattoo Shop, Entrée, Bergen, Norway
2019–20
Rhapsody and Still Life, Vigeland Museum, Oslo, Norway
2019
The Silk Roads, Kunsthall Grenland, Porsgrunn, Norway
2017
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, BWA Wrocław Galleries of Contemporary Art, Wrocław, Poland
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023–26
Skakke Folkedrakter (Queer Folk Dress), The National Museum, Olso, Norway; in collaboration with the Norwegian Institute for Bunad and Folk Costume, Valdres Folkemuseum, Randsfjord Museum, Museum Stavanger, and Bodø Cultural Capital
2025
Energy Transfer: Parallel Narratives in Norwegian Ceramics 1895–2025, Center for Ceramic Art, Ringebu, Norway
2023
Eckbos Legat: Anniversary Exhibition, Vigeland Museum, Oslo, Norway
Skakke Folkedrakter (Queer Folk Dress), RiddoDuottarMuseat, Karasjok, Norway
Skakke Folkedrakter (Queer Folk Dress), Valdres Folkemuseum, Fagernes, Norway
2022
Luck and Destiny: A Porcelain Cabinet, Stiftsgården, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
We Come from the Other Side, Mezzanine Gallery, United Nations Office, Geneva, Switzerland; on the Occasion of the International Academy of Ceramics’ 70th Anniversary and 50th Congress, “Melting Pot”
2021
As Far as My Eyes Can Sea: The Expedition Exhibition, Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Arendal, Norway
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, Vol. 5: Made in Ringebu, Senter for Keramisk Kunst, Ringebu, Norway
Høstutstillingen 2021: Statens 134. Kunstutstilling (Autumn Exhibition 2021: The 134th National Art Exhibition), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway
Sand i Maskineriet (Sand in the Machinery), Nasjonalmuseet på Teknisk Museum, Oslo, Norway
Porselensmuseet, Porsgrunn, Norway
2019
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, Vol. 3, Barents Spektakel Festival, Kirkenes, Norway
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, Vol. 4, Kunstnernes Hus, in collaborationwith the National Museum, Oslo, Norway
2018
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, Vol. 1: Performance Dinner, KODE Art Museums,Bergen, Norway
Exotic Dreams and Poetic Misunderstandings, Vol. 2: Årsutstillingen (The Annual Exhibition), Østfold Kunstsenter, Fredrikstad, Norway
125 Objects, Choices, Stories, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
2017
Høstutstillingen 2017 (Autumn Exhibition 2017), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway
Sweden-China Maritime Silk Road Culture Exhibition, Swedish Embassy, Prince Kung's Mansion, Beijing, China
2016
Høstutstillingen 2016 (Autumn Exhibition 2016), Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway
True Blue: Five Artists Exhibition, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
RESIDENCIES
2022
Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo (Oslo National Academy of the Arts), Oslo, Norway
2021
Senter for Keramisk Kunst, Ringebu, Norway
2018
Porsgrunds Porselænsfabrik, Porsgrunn, Norway
PUBLIC COMMISSIONS
Grorud Kindergarten, Oslo, Norway
Hammerfest Hospital, Hammerfest, Norway
Ishavsbyen High School, Tromsø, Norway
Kristiansand Psychiatric Hospital, Kristiansand, Norway
Lørenskog Kindergarten, Oslo, Norway
New Narvik Hospital, Narvik, Norway
Sarpsborg Library, Sarpsborg, Norway
Tønsberg Courthouse, Tønsberg, Norway
COLLECTIONS
Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, Trondheim, Norway
Oslo Kommune, Oslo, Norway
Porsgrunn Kommune, Porsgrunn, Norway
The National Museum, Oslo, Norway
