Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Silence Awareness Existence program / MARCH 2022
Weihui Lu
USA
www.weihuilu.com
About
In my work, I’m interested in exploring themes of mental
health, climate change, and the ways in which identities - both
cultural and personal - are created through the narratives we
imagine and retell. I was born in Shanghai, China and grew
up in Queens, NY.
My paintings have been exhibited at the Venice Architecture
Biennale, Trestle Gallery, and Site:Brooklyn, among others,
and I have been awarded residencies at Arteles, Arts, Letters
and Numbers, and Trestle Art Space. In 2021, I was a recipient
of the Queens Council on the Arts New Work Grant. I hold a
B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University.
Altar
The month at the Arteles came at a necessary time, when
I was deep in a crisis of faith in the studio. Each day, as I
wandered through the forest, I would come across new,
small gifts: the way the snow glowed, melting in the sunlight,
or a piece of fungi growing on tree bark, resembling a dash
of paint. These simple beauties were a reminder of what I
had lost sight of; they were a visual embodiment of hope.
Building this altar was borne of both desperation and that
sense of quiet restoration, as I immersed myself in the
ancient beauty of the Finnish landscape, relieved from the
incessant negative news of the media by a lack of internet
access, and buoyed by the companionship of the artists I
met at the residency. As I began working in the studio again,
I thought about invisible labor as a mode of devotion, versus
the overt labor of capitalism and art as product; of the value
of living over the value of production. For the final offering,
I cut my braid, which had remained untouched through the
past four years, and laid it on the altar.