GG: Many of your paintings depict deities and religious symbols. What is your relationship to religion within your work?

SW: I am interested in religious metaphors and how they play a role in describing human behaviors and historical events concisely and poetically. Studying the relationship between cultural symbols and how different societies adapted these symbols, whether politically or aesthetically, creates a cohesive way for me to tie seemingly unrelated events and stories together.

GG: Your paintings draw attention to facets of civilization throughout history, including financial capital, textiles, technological advancement, class, religion and mythology, colonialism, sovereignty…the list goes on. Can you expand on the connections made between the different elements within any one painting?

SW: In the 'Realm of Cards,' I was initially trying to make a painting after discovering how all the cards that had a face referred to one or more famous royal people in European history. All the historical figures referenced in the poker cards were from around the feudalist period of European history and about the age of discovery, and around when the Black Death pandemic happened. I was trying to convey that human history consisted of competitions and partnerships, and it's very much like a card game where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. However, I thought that nature is really the bookmaker in any given time of human history, so I made the frame of that painting depicting the pandemic. 

GG: I know that you moved to the USA from China initially to attend the Maryland Institute College of Art for your BFA. Where are you from in China, and how has your sense of home influenced your work?

SW: I am from Chengdu, Sichuan province. The city itself is stereotypically known as the hometown of pandas, hotpot, and people who love playing Majiang. Historically, it was Shu's capital, one of three kingdoms of the three kingdoms period in China. I grew up reading a comic book about the three kingdoms period, so I guess all my current interests come from my childhood.

GG: You use many symbols throughout your work-an hourglass, a butterfly, the lotus flower, sun symbols, and hieroglyphs. Can you describe your thoughts about language and symbology? Your connection to particular symbols used throughout your work?

SW: The more I learned about Chinese traditional art, the more I understand how language, particularly calligraphy, played a huge role in ancient Chinese painters' artistic practices. The Chinese language came from pictographs, and there is a visual relationship between the Chinese characters and religious symbols because languages were first used by tribes to conduct and document religious ceremonies. I have been trying to develop a way to combine speech with my work directly, maybe performance, I don't know, I still prefer painting as the primary medium.