Sunny Wang
Born in Taiwan and educated in Australia, artist Sunny Wang contemplates the meaning of life through her colorful glass sculptures. She talks to Leanne Mirandilla about glass sculpture as an artistic medium and its rise in the Chinese art world.
HK Magazine: Why glass?
Sunny Wang: It was kind of a beautiful accident. When I finished my undergraduate degree in commercial design in Taiwan, I got a job in a factory as a glass product designer. That was back in 1995. I became a glass artist later on. I find this material quite fascinating, in a way. It is quite unique. Glass has so many different faces. It can be opaque or translucent. When it’s hot, it’s like water, and when it’s cold, it’s like stone. It has a beauty whether it’s very hot or very cold. For me, glass is a material that’s very close to nature. When I’m working with hot liquid glass, it’s very much like working with ink.
HK: Many of your sculptures feature Chinese calligraphy. Can you tell us more about that?
SW: Yes, I’m into the idea, the aesthetics and the way of calligraphy. The gesture of calligraphy cannot ever be repeated; the second one will never be the same. When you’ve done the writing, it’s done—like glass-blowing. You have to be really focused in the moment when you are writing or when you are making glass, you really need to be totally present, be in the now.
HK: Do you think people should use this sort of focus in their everyday life as well?
SW: For me at least, yes. In real life, reality, and even for teaching, I find that the students learn a lot, their awareness of themselves increases through the practice of glass-making and glass-blowing, because they really totally need to be in the moment.
HK: Do you do a lot of teaching?
SW: Yes, I do, I’m teaching at the Hong Kong Baptist University, and we are the only glass studio in Hong Kong. Actually, we are the only university in the whole of China that has a glass-blowing program. Glass is a new medium for the Chinese. Glass blowing is the more fascinating, because you work with 1150-degree hot liquid glass. Most of the universities in China only teach casting, which is more like sculpture. You make a mould and you put the glass on the top, and then put it in the kiln and the glass melts into the mould. But glass blowing is quite unique, because it’s like learning calligraphy. It takes longer to be a master hand; to know the material.
HK: You’re from Taiwan but studied in Australia—how did your living environment influence your work?
SW: Chinese people from Taiwan are quite traditional compared to Hong Kong Chinese. Australia had a lot of influence on how I do things, how I see things, especially in my artwork. But I’m quite Chinese. I use calligraphy. It’s in my blood.
HK: Do you have a background in any other media?
SW: I have tried ceramics and jewelry before, but my skin could not cope with ceramics, [because it] was sensitive to the clay, and jewelry was too small. Glass is much more basic than other materials, but if I need to use other materials, then I will, like fishing lines.
