The Outsider

A painting by Pei Wang of a young girl with short blonde hair riding a white horse in front of a dimly lit carousel

The Vanity Fair

A painting by Pei Wang of a person's face staring into the distance and lit on either side with a yellow and blue light

The Outsider 

A painting by Pei Wang of a tightly cropped woman's face on it's side

A detail of a painting by Pei Wang of a blonde haired girl riding a horse against a dark background

A painting by Pei Wang of a blonde haired girl riding a horse against a dark background

A painting by Pei Wang of a side view close-up of a person with long blonde hair

A painting by Pei Wang of the underside of a persons face with their chin gently lit from below

A painting by Pei Wang of the back of a person's head against a dark green background

A portrait of Pei Wang sat in a dark room holding a paintbrush

Workplace is pleased to announce the first UK solo exhibition by Pei Wang.

’ is a technique which cinema has long employed to reveal more than the human eye might normally see – a device to build empathy between the viewer and the protagonist in the service of a constructed narrative. In the work of Pei Wang, tightly cropped faces are rendered on canvas with meticulous and unwavering detail. 

Light glistens on the moist surface of an eye, translucent layers of saturated colour forms skin as minute crevices and folds undulating in and out of focus. Brooding dramatic tension is heightened by the murky chiaroscuro of a darkened background.

In his seminal 1936 essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ Walter Benjamin argues that the ‘aura’ - the presence and authenticity of a work of art - is rooted in its singularity and uniqueness within a specific context, whereas mechanically reproduced artforms such as photography and film shift away from the singular aura of the art object towards a democratisation and politicisation. In our age of digital dissemination, Pei Wang’s canvases are a battleground, a site of both homage and challenge, where the aura is not lost but transformed.

Depictions of the face and body align with our innate human reflex and desires that are exploited by digital platforms to feed our perpetual engagement. Wang’s use of casein tempera—an ancient form of paint derived from milk and laden with historical and biological connotations—stands as defiant affirmation of the tactile and the temporal. Surface texture, the play of light and shadow, the subtle gradations of colour—all are given prominence, demanding from the viewer a meditative attention that opposes the scrolling speeds of digital consumption.

The algorithm—a god of our own unwitting creation—demands of images a certain legibility and speed of consumption. Wang’s work resists this with a stoic ferocity. Here, the close-up does not merely serve the algorithm's insatiable hunger for clarity and immediacy. Instead, it becomes a tool of resistance, a method of slowing the eye, of demanding contemplation and, ultimately, of commanding a more profound engagement. This is painting as an act of defiance, a slow rebellion against the tyranny of the instantaneous.

A painting by Pei Wang of a child in white with a short blonde bob sitting on a white horse

An installation view of Pei Wang's solo exhibition including several dark figurative paintings

United Kingdom

London

WORKPLACE

Pei Wang's first UK solo exhibition presents detailed, close-up portraits that defy digital consumption. Experience the tactile and temporal through meticulous casein tempera works.

The Enneagram Mask

Related Artists

Pei Wang

London

Newcastle