Beyond the Surface: About the Artists

We are impacted by grief, loss, and devastation not just individually but as a collective. I’m interested in how we can build networks of community and mutual aid to support each other before, during, and after catastrophic events like flooding or other climate disaster. Inspired by biological and environmental systems, I explore the concept of (re)building network through collage and assemblage. Repurposing found material, I construct assemblages that become nontraditional surfaces for collage. After making monoprints full of color and texture, I cut them into strips and use randomized processes informed by the Dada artist movement to develop collaged sculptures and abstract images. This work was recently on exhibit in WNC when Helene hit, emphasizing the relevance and immediate need for connection and systems of support.

Her work is featured in the Renwick Museum Store in conjunction with the exhibit Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women. In 2024 Kristy had two solo exhibits, one at the Lyndon House Center for the Arts in the Atrium Gallery and at the Park Circle Gallery. Her work was also featured in Material World: A Contemporary Fiber Art Exhibition at the Fayetteville Arts Council as well as From Fiber presented by Springfield Art Association of Illinois.

In addition to her studio practice, Kristy is a teaching artist focusing on textile practices as a Certified Teaching Artist with the S.C. Arts Commission. She travels for artist residencies in public schools all over South Carolina, and hosts adult workshops, and summer camps. Kristy partners with Engaging Creative Minds, the Charleston Museum, the McClellanville Arts Council, the Gibbes Museum of Art, and the Appalachian Center for Craft to facilitate workshops.

I weave and sew the ratchet straps into “gifts” that have been shipped from overseas as well as sewing the straps into “fractals” reminiscent of fractals that occur in nature such as a cell structure or coral. My fractals are staged at the end of Folly Beach draped over boneyard trees that have died from the saltwater incursion as well as in the sand, right on the edge of the lapping tide. These are meant to appear as if they’ve washed ashore, which often is the case with waste from global shipping and fishing.

It’s been said that the South can be a righteous and rowdy place where you can feel the energy as you pass through. I created these photographs in and around the Gulf Coast between 2023 and 2024. My journey unfolded along Old Hwy 90, a stretch of road from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans. Many sections along this route are closed today due to rising sea levels and a need for more funding.

Equipped with a single fixed-lens rangefinder, I rode shotgun with a swamp native, who led me through the landscapes they’ve intimately known for more than four decades. I embraced a minimalist approach, drawing from my earlier work as a photojournalist. Allowing the days to play out before me, I did not disturb or influence what was framed in my viewfinder. It wasn’t until the sequencing began that the Gulf Coast’s magical realism became evident.

Ian Curcio is a photographer based in the Carolinas. He spent his childhood moving frequently, attending grade schools across the United States, Central Europe, and Southeast Asia. This early exposure to different cultures, mixed values, and rapid change sparked his curiosity and continues to influence his work today. Whether capturing editorial portraits, working with corporate brands, or pursuing personal projects, Curcio’s original style connects his diverse portfolio with the hum of everyday people in everyday life.

Sky Dai is an emerging artist living in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, N.C. Their figurative oil paintings explore imagery from memories, relationships, medicine ceremonies, and the astral realm. Most recently, Sky Dai received a grant to be an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center. They received a B.F.A. in fine arts and creative writing at Columbus College of Art and Design and attended and taught School of the Alternative at Black Mountain College. Sky Dai received the Emerging Young Artists Award of Excellence from the Kennedy Center, and they were flown out to Washington D.C. to attend receptions on Capital Hill and had their artwork purchased for the permanent collection. Sky Dai also makes hand-painted clothing and one-of-a-kind tarot decks and sells them at a boutique in West Asheville. When they’re not making art, they’re probably reading tarot cards under the moon, searching for a swimming hole, or doing improvisational dance.

My surreal figurative oil paintings are vessels for the visions I channel through psychic intuition, plant medicines, ceremonies, dream work, and repressed memories. Inspired by how traumatic stress causes the brain to collage fragments of memory, I distort perspectives and figures, creating portals to whimsical worlds. Taking inspiration from the DIY culture of Black Mountain College, I mix avant-garde improvisational dance, fashion design, and performance art into my practice. I also employ symbology from tarot cards, religious iconography, queer culture, and domestic space. Recently, I’ve been creating a body of work inspired by the hurricane and floods that destroyed Western North Carolina, my home, and the visions that came to me in that time.

Gabe Duggan (they/them; b. Buffalo, NY) has had residencies at Fish Factory (Stöðvarfjörður, IS), Sculpture Space Inc. (Utica, NY), Praxis Fiber Workshop (OH), Cooler Ranch (NY), Landfalls (NY), the Musk Ox Farm (AK), Governors Island Art Fair (NY), Ponyride (Knight Foundation Emerging Artist, MI), and Rob Dunn Lab (NCSU+NCMNS).

Awards and Special Projects include: Field Project’s ‘ENDS WELL’ at Mother In Law’s Gallery for Upstate Art Weekend, Juror’s Prize at Art on the Trails by Sarah Montross, the Integrated Coastal Programs Coastal Fellowship (Coastal Studies Institute), RCAA (ECU), Engagement and Outreach Scholars Academy (ECU), and project grants from the N.C. Arts Council. They have taught at the University of North Texas, Georgia State University, and Penland School of Craft amongst others, and are presently an associate professor at East Carolina University.

I construct installations in three-dimensional space through tension and repetition. Recent works, “WAS HERE” (2022), “RECOHERE” (2021), and “no one knows” (extent in NY since 2020) use DSM Dyneema® to weather various climates and survive primarily in the datasphere. 

My work simulates binary systems, drawing attention to interreliance between dichotomies by positioning grey areas in balanced tension. When performing as the subject I step into roles of image, image-builder, and viewer to directly inhabit spaces of both lost and self-possessed agency. 

“VISKUBIT” (2023) and “violence/consent” (2024) abandon media specificity altogether and use the body as a subtractive technology upon the earth’s surface. These works etch a mark regardless of consent by receiving species. Related to desire paths and meditation labyrinths, “VISKUBIT” and “violence/consent” engage trauma and reparations, existing only through use and inevitably erased by neglect. 

By laboring tediously over impermanent, precarious systems I render perceived-values, such as functionality, vulnerable.

Morgan was born in Connecticut and raised in North Carolina. She attended Clemson University and graduated with a B.S. in graphic communications with a minor in advertising in 2006. In 2018 and 2019, she completed an online program through the Visual Arts Passage for Illustration and attended the Illustration Academy in Kansas City, MO.

Her latest work includes oil, watercolor, ink, and mixed-media paintings. She enjoys experimenting with new mediums and continues to explore figures and landscapes in addition to more conceptual ideas involving the human form and nature.

Water has consistently served as a central theme in my artistic process, embodying my deep appreciation for this element that is both gentle and powerful. The organic lines of the female form, echoing the fluidity and movement found in water, inspire much of my latest work. My paintings often depict moments of tranquility in natural settings, creating a visual narrative that explores how these encounters help us overcome the obstacles, insecurities, and daily struggles of human existence.

Through my work, I capture the delicate balance between the familiar and the unexplored, blending realism with expressive mark-making. I utilize a variety of tools—silicon brushes, brayer rollers, spray bottles, and palette knives—on surfaces such as birch panels, paper, aluminum, and canvas to achieve this effect.

Adam Farcus is an activist, artist, curator, feminist, organizer, poet, quasi-linguist, teacher, and writer. Farcus received their M.F.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, B.F.A. from Illinois State University, and A.A. from Joliet Junior College. They currently serve on the Foundations in Art, Theory and Education (FATE) board, as well as participate in the Climate Psychological Alliance, and organize with the Utopian Megapraxis. Their work has been exhibited at numerous venues, including the Modern Museum of Art Fort Worth; Vox Populi, Philadelphia; the American University Museum; and the Advance Art Museum in Changsha, China. Farcus’s academic writing has been published in Art Education and the Journal of Second Language Writing and their creative writing has been published in Rattle: A Journal at the Convergence of Art and Writing and Funny Looking Dog Quarterly among others. In addition to studio art, Farcus has taught English composition, English as second language writing, and art writing. Farcus is the director of Lease Agreement, an alternative and nomadic curatorial project, and they are the Studio Foundations Coordinator and Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of South Florida.

Through poetic sleight of hand, my work investigates with the negative emotional ramifications of and positive emotional responses to climate change. The social-political climate and dire environmental state of our society cause specific kinds of fear, anxiety, complacency, and hopelessness that are stultifying. In opposition to and persistence against these emotions, my work offers viewers a physical embodiment of these emotions and a kind of care. My goal is to instill a complex emotional relationship with the phenomena. The purpose of my work is to ask viewers not to ignore climate change, injustice, or their effects, but to confront their fears and anxieties, acknowledge how we are part of the issues, and find motivation and strength to be part of the solutions. 

“Helene” is a sound-based work made during Hurricane Helene as experienced by the artist in Tampa, Florida. The piece is an abstracted documentation of the sounds and emotions caused by Helene.

Her practice encompasses a diverse range of mediums, including photography, free drawing, sound, poetry, performative installations, and land art. Gao often incorporates locally sourced materials to foster connections between herself and the surrounding environment, to find connections between self and outside environment. Recently, she has focused on textiles and collectible local materials, such as handpicked cotton, utilizing their tactile qualities to evoke nostalgia and memories in her installations. She views her work as an act of self-expression that inspires and empowers others, constructing spaces where audiences engage when they feel ready.

Gao’s work has been showcased in national and international exhibitions, including the Library Mural Project at the Toledo Museum of Art Reference Library and An Inspired Age at the Toledo Museum of Art. Her projects have been featured in prominent venues such as the CICA Museum in South Korea, the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Surface Design Association, iidrr Gallery in NYC, and Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, connecting with diverse audiences worldwide. Her accolades include artist residencies such as the ecoSuites Residency in Greece in 2023 and the upcoming 2026 Chateau d’Orquevaux Artists Residency in France, highlighting her commitment to eco-conscious practices

Her work has also been featured in publications such as VoyageLA, Bold Magazine, Blurb, and Insight of an Eco Artist. Gao has served as a panelist for Artists 360 – Mid-America Arts Alliance and is a committee member for ISEA2025. She remains dedicated to integrating her passion for art education.

I like to work with my intuition first and then discover the hidden traces behind it.

Instincts never hide what they did or think, which is more sincere than mine.

I see the world as containers, that hold things.

Some are big, some are small.

Some contain others within, while some overlap and intertwine.

They are not fixed.

At times, it is clear and fluid; at others, it dissolves into chaos,

constantly shifting in between boundaries.

Living within ambiguity contains me, sometimes confuses me,

but also led me to discover the hidden traces that move me forward.

I believe each material has their personalities.

I tend to listen, sometimes they respond.

Over time, we grow familiar and work together.

My work is all about the emotional life of being.

I am not creating a form but finding a sense of belonging in these v o i d s.

Is it black, white,   void,    or      what else?

I graduated from Greenville Technical College in 2021 with my A.A. and transferred to Clemson University to finish my B.F.A. in 2023. When I’m not cultivating my studio practice or prying a slipper out of my dog’s mouth, I’m engaging in the world of fine arts through a variety of roles involving gallery, studio, and instructional assistance in my hometown of Greenville, South Carolina.

Harris received her B.S. in art history from Skidmore College and M.Ed. in education leadership from Columbia University. She has served as principal of a turnaround school in New Orleans and has consulted with school leaders across the South to implement equitable learning practices and anti-racist history education. Recent exhibitions include NADA Curates, the New Mexico State University Museum, SITE at the Goat Farm (Atlanta, GA), Art Fields (Lake City, SC), Stoveworks (Chattanooga, TN), the Barnes Ogden Gallery at Louisiana State University, and Science Gallery Atlanta. She has been an artist in residence at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (Hudson Valley, NY), and The Hambidge Center (Rabun Gap, GA), and was one of 7 artists selected for the Art & Social Justice Fellowship at Emory University in 2023. Current projects include Sonoran Heritage Waters with musicians and ecologists at Arizona State University and Hope Springs Eternal in collaboration with activist group RISE St. James and New Orleans-based artists. Harris is an M.F.A. candidate at Georgia State University. She lives in Atlanta with her partner, Josh, and their two children.

In search of remedy and connection, I work with scientists, communities, and handfuls of site-specific materials to uncover the history and natural relationships of a place and how they have been severed, altered, and suppressed through colonial disconnection. Informed by emergent strategy, critical ecology, and reparative history, my process centers on relational practices where I am most often a learner, facilitator, and connector. Through this, I’m learning to read how other living beings (trees, microbes, clay) are also primary sources that record and affirm the same histories that are being erased in American schools, histories we must collectively understand and repair to correct course.

My process results in paintings, photographs, social practice, videos, sculptures, and collages that highlight natural materiality and movement through fractal patterns—like white oak tree ink rooting through clay watercolor, crushed beach coal reanimating in seawater, or how centuries of a river’s flow is held in a tree. By shrinking geologic shifts to the size of myself, I’m trying to accept the inevitability and beauty of change while grappling with the world my children will live in without me. This impulse underpins my work, which uses attention and multiple ways of knowing to make sense of love and fear, resulting in a desperate archive of the overwhelming present-tense.

Through her practice, Madison explores the relationship between the documentary medium and the natural environment. Utilizing 16mm filmmaking, photography, and archival materials, Madison’s research centers on the American South with an emphasis on environmental exploitation in the Appalachian and wetland regions. Madison’s moving image work has screened on PBS and at festivals including St. Louis International Film Festival, Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, Thin Line Fest, and Kansas City Film Festival.

With a double major in studio art and biology from the College of Charleston, Hopkins merges her artistic and scientific insights to address environmental responsibility and provoke discussions about consumption and waste. Some of her favorite materials to work with are t-shirt scraps, plastic trash, trees, and cardboard. Hopkins has exhibited her work locally, regionally, and nationally. She is especially proud of her work done in the eco-art group exhibition “Recent Remnants” where she tapped into oceanic memories in “What the Sea Gave Me I and II.” The combination t-shirt macrame tapestry, found object alter with water samples from Sullivan’s Island, and a poem were standouts in the exhibit. Recently, she participated in a sustainable group art show where she explored microplastics and their impact on oysters and water quality in “Micro Raw.”

Hopkins lives a short drive from her beloved ocean with her husband, daughter, and their two dogs, Rainy and Sunny. Hopkins embraces a playful and explorative spirit in her artmaking. During her summers off from teaching, she enjoys getting lost in the woods, letting her hair get crazy at the beach, and experimenting in her garage art studio.

It is my goal to repurpose discarded materials into my mixed media works as frequently and intentionally as I can. With my background not only in art but in biiology as well, I approach my art with a sense of curiosity, using a scientific lens to explore our connection to the natural world. My hope is that each piece encourages viewers to contemplate our shared responsibility to protect our world Through my work, I aspire to inspire dialogue and foster a collective commitment to a more sustainable future.

Having traversed the eras of industrialization, globalization, and automation, we are now living in a time of unprecedented abundance in production. The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution—epitomized by big data and AI—presents artists with two pressing challenges. First, how do AI and big data impact the arts? Do these technological advancements diminish the significance of art and artists? Second, what can art and artists do to address the core problem of our society: poverty in the midst of abundance? These questions become even more critical when considering the growing inequalities across various identity groups, including race, ethnicity, and gender.

Through my artwork and research, I aim to redefine the role of art in addressing poverty amid abundance, particularly within the context of AI and big data. In doing so, I revisit the age-old and ever-relevant debate about the relationship between art and reality. I aim to demonstrate that art, when integrated with actual and scientific data, does not distort reality but rather enhances our understanding of it. In other words, art can serve as a fact-checking tool, so long as it accurately represents the object it describes and the relevant data associated with the subject.

I utilize programming languages such as Processing and R, alongside data from scientific research, to create patterns and integrate them into representational painting. This approach allows the audience to engage with art infused with factual elements, fostering a deeper understanding of the subject matter. To address the issue of poverty in the midst of abundance, I am currently focusing on themes related to food deserts (food access), minority identity & entrepreneurship in the U.S.

‘What can art and artists do to address the core problems of our society?’ has always been my guiding question before starting any project. My recent work on Beyond the Surface began with this question in mind. What will our world look like 20 years from now? How will the water resources in the South Carolina region change over the next two decades? 

For this exhibition, I used various descriptions of South Carolina as prompts to generate and synthesize multiple images through AI. I then created a composite illustration by drawing a present-day South Carolina salt marsh—it may exist, yet not entirely real. Afterward, I incorporated scientific predictions about Charleston in 2050 into the artwork. 

Through this piece, I aimed to convey that whether anything depicted in the image becomes real or remains fictional ultimately depends on the choices and efforts we make today. 

Sally Ann McKinsey is an interdisciplinary artist working in sculptural installation, video, performance, fibers, and ceramics. Her work, which explores illness and mortality at the intersection of vernacular practices in caregiving and the biomedical industrial complex, has been shown nationally and internationally.

She is an adjunct faculty member at Tennessee Tech University in the School of Art, Craft, and Design, and she has also recently served as an adjunct faculty member at Wofford College. Sally Ann received an M.F.A. in studio art at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2020, an M.Div. at Columbia Theological Seminary in 2013, and a B.A. in art at Furman University in 2010. Sally Ann lives and works in Clemson, South Carolina, where she is also the co-creator of Utilities Included, an exhibition space and small editions publisher out of her home.

In collaboration with Drew Sisk. Born from our experience of a flood in our home and studios, “Flood Loop” is a collaborative work that uses failure, absurdity, and impossibility as methods of research. Two submersible pumps (the same pumps we used against rising water in our home) work against each other in a system that reflects on the impossibility of preparing for and escaping extreme weather caused by climate change. The work investigates the precarity and power of political and religious ideologies that have contributed to environmental collapse. A gospel tract framed on the wall references evangelical Christian theologies that offer simplistic, hollow solutions for life’s problems while fostering escapist cultural ideologies that have fueled the climate crisis. Garden hoses and moving boxes suggest a hasty, makeshift response to rising waters in an absurd loop that raises questions about the function of each element and recognizes the hopelessness disaster can bring. 

Jeff’s work has been published in a diverse array of publications including WIRED Magazine, World Art Magazine, and the textbook Exploring Color Photography. He has received individual artist grants from the Arts and Science Council, the Ohio Arts Council, and the North Carolina Arts Council. In addition to over 40 National solo exhibitions, his digital images, videos, and installations have been seen in Italy, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Brazil.

Jeff currently is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he teaches digital imaging, interactive design, photography, video, and animation.

Befoul is a call to action, urging viewers to confront the urgent issue of water scarcity. By presenting a series of dystopian visions, I aim to spark conversations about the social and political implications of an ongoing environmental crisis.

Kasia Ozga is a Polish French American sculptor and installation artist most recently based in Greensboro, N.C. She reuses, revalues, and reanimates mass-produced materials into singular artworks and inverts associations we make with different types of waste.

Ozga is a former Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship recipient, Harriet Hale Woolley grantee from the Fondation des Etats-Unis, Jerome Fellowship recipient at Franconia Sculpture Park, and Paul-Louis Weiller award recipient from the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. Her work has been exhibited in over 15 different countries and she has participated widely in residencies in Europe and North America (Shakers, Nekatoenea, Pépinières Européennes de Création, ACRE, KHN). Currently an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at UNCG, Ozga holds a Ph.D. from the University of Paris 8, an M.F.A. from the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, and a B.F.A. from the SMFA at Tufts University, Boston.

My work begins and ends in the human body. Our remnants (what we cast off and leave behind in the form of waste, trash, memory, etc.) ground and connect us to the earth. My work asks where the things in our lives come from and where they go once we’ve used them. By representing and re-animating remains, I explore the potential of materials to ask questions and to evoke larger environmental relationships. 

I treat the products of our culture as physical remains of our bodies and explore how we generate objects as physical extensions of ourselves. With man-made forms, materials, and processes, I extend, inhibit, and modify elements of the human body. I reuse, up-cycle, and revalue regular, standardized, and mass-produced materials into something one-of-a-kind and special to invert the associations we make with different types of detritus. My raw materials are manufactured products with a particular use history and product life cycle. Whether bastardized industrially produced goods in the white cube or surreal interventions in public spaces, my work explores the limits of functionality and worth. 

I give a human dimension to physical sites by foregrounding their historical/narrative aspects and input human features into sterile goods by cutting, breaking, gluing, and carving them into forms that evoke the human body. These artworks are at once physical things and conceptual spaces. Through the physical labor and limitations of my own body, I question which bodies are present and missing in political and cultural discourses. I explore the anatomical potential of the female body as a material metaphor for our actions to ask viewers whether our current situation is fixed or not and how change can emerge.

Peri’s work has been included in exhibitions at the Harwood Museum of Art, Albuquerque Museum, University of New Mexico’s Museum of Art, SRO Photo Gallery, Yuma Center for the Arts, Corn Center for the Visual Arts, and Millepiani Exhibition Space among others. Peri has been featured in Fraction Magazine, Glasstire, and D Magazine. Recently he has been partnering with the Audubon Society of South Carolina in effort to aid their conservation mission.

Robertson has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in numerous group exhibitions like FORECAST 2021: SF Camerawork’s Annual Survey Exhibition and Exposure Photography Festival’s International Open Call (2022). Her solo exhibitions include Making Reference, Juxtaposition Arts, Minneapolis, MN (2020); One Hundred More, Galveston Arts Center, Galveston, TX (2022); and Make For High Ground, Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL (2023). She has received multiple grants and fellowships, most recently through The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Her photobook, Charting the Afriscape of Leon County, TX, was published in December 2020 with Fifth Wheel Press. Work from Charting the Afriscape is in the collection of McNeese State University in Lake Charles, LA. She earned an M.F.A in studio art from the University of Houston and an M.S. in art therapy from Florida State University. Robertson lives in Hampton Roads, Virginia, where she is an Assistant Professor at Old Dominion University.

Austin earned his B.A. in studio art from the University of North Carolina, Pembroke in 2007 and his M.F.A. in Sculpture from East Carolina University in 2010. Previously, he’s been an Artist-in-Residence at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, Franconia Sculpture Park, and Salem Art Works, and has participated in International Sculpture Symposia in the UK, Germany, Finland, Costa Rica, and Latvia. Austin is a faculty member at Coker University and lives in Duart, North Carolina. He’s currently working towards developing new work for a major solo exhibition at Wilson Arts in 2026.

Drew Sisk is Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Clemson University. His research blurs the lines between fine art and graphic design, using live web-based work, installation, and print media as ways to critically explore the conjunction of media, politics, and technology. His artists’ books and publications are included in collections at the Yale University Hass Arts Library Special Collections and the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), among others. Previously he worked in visual identity design and branding at EM2 in Atlanta and in publishing design at Duke University Press. He earned his M.F.A. in Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018 and his B.A. in studio art and Asian studies at Furman University in 2010. 

In collaboration with Sally Ann McKinsey. Born from our experience of a flood in our home and studios, “Flood Loop” is a collaborative work that uses failure, absurdity, and impossibility as methods of research. Two submersible pumps (the same pumps we used against rising water in our home) work against each other in a system that reflects on the impossibility of preparing for and escaping extreme weather caused by climate change. The work investigates the precarity and power of political and religious ideologies that have contributed to environmental collapse. A gospel tract framed on the wall references evangelical Christian theologies that offer simplistic, hollow solutions for life’s problems while fostering escapist cultural ideologies that have fueled the climate crisis. Garden hoses and moving boxes suggest a hasty, makeshift response to rising waters in an absurd loop that raises questions about the function of each element and recognizes the hopelessness disaster can bring.

Thomas holds her M.F.A. in studio art from Memphis College of Art. She lives in her native Charleston, S.C. She is the proud single mom to a preschooler. Thomas is currently a full-time high school art teacher.

I am particularly interested in the way these forms mimic human consumption and its relationship to pollution, which spreads over and suffocates the world around us, just as plastics become entangled in the environment. My works are abstract embodiments of this process, usually on a larger scale, in an attempt to envelop the scope of issues we face in the Anthropocene. Each piece brings with it the narrative associated with its materiality, the juxtaposition of nature and manmade, and challenges the viewer to contemplate their own relationship with these materials. 

Moyan Wang was born in China in the year 2000 and is currently an M.F.A. student at UNC-Chapel Hill. She uses ceramics, paintings, and sculpture to explore the intersections of the personal, social, and historical trauma of China and the Chinese diaspora, drawing connections between the private and the public, the mythological and the realistic. Using materials and objects with rich cultural history, she creates enigmatic metaphors for unspoken stories.

She graduated with a B.A. from Northwestern University and received the Graduate Merit Fellowship from UNC Chapel Hill. Her works have been featured in Beijing Design Week, Art Plus Shanghai Art Fair, the Royal West of England Academy Biennial, and the Ambition Award exhibition in Shanghai. Her current works are influenced by the flood of 2024 in the Carolinas, which she witnessed as an international student at UNC. Using locally sourced materials to convey Chinese mythologies, she contemplates how environmental and social justice intersects with cultural diaspora.

My works explore the intersections of the personal, social, and historical trauma of China and the Chinese diaspora, drawing connections between the private and the public, the mythological and the realistic. Using diverse materials with deep cultural significance in China’s collective memory, I address themes of immigration, diaspora, gender, surveillance, and resistance. 

My art is haunted by the atmosphere of silence and restraint, shaped by the experience of living under censorship and the challenge of communicating trauma. In my works, water is a recurring metaphor for global migration and fluid materiality. It transgresses the borders of nations and cognition, and brings distant materials to our reach. On the other hand, aquatic disasters signal social issues and have mythological and realistic significance. 

I am currently a graduate student in the Environmental and Sustainable Studies program at the College of Charleston. While I am not a working artist, I have always been interested in the intersection of art and the environment. I am the daughter of a professional artist and as early as high school, I painted murals in the Outer Banks.

During my work in Alabama, I was inspired by the shrimping community in Bayou La Batre, the subject of one of my research projects and a community facing many coastal hazards. Visually, this area is a shell of what it used to be, before Katrina, Deepwater Horizon, and the decline of the shrimping industry. Pieces in this collection are currently on show at the Mobile Museum of Art Government Plaza exhibition.

As my career in the environmental field progresses, I am interested in exploring how to use art as a connection to the coast, by continuing to produce my own art and incorporating techniques such as photovoice into my research.

My work utilizes photography to explore the resilience of the shrimping community in Bayou La Batre. Devastated by Hurricane Katrina and facing new threats of SLR, water pollution, and foreign competition, these shrimpers are intimate with the precariousness of our waterways. I’ve spent countless hours talking to shrimpers in the Bayou, via both my research and art. These pieces are representative of a singular crew, one that I spent the most time with on their vessel and had a compelling story to tell. They catch freshwater shrimp, only out for a few days at a time, versus those who go offshore into saltwater for weeks at a time. This reduces the resources needed to keep the catch fresh, however there is an increased threat of pollution in the bay. I intend to highlight this community, an excellent example of resilience, determination, and where water is the way of life.