An Interview with Artist Wang Mansheng

Beginning on May 17, The Huntington will present “Wang Mansheng: Without Us,” an immersive installation that combines contemporary art and classical Chinese conceptions of nature to explore the interconnectedness of all living things. On view through Aug. 4, 2025, in the Studio for Lodging the Mind 寓意齋—a gallery within The Huntington’s renowned Chinese Garden—the exhibition features 22 hand-painted raw silk panels suspended from the ceiling. Together, they invite visitors to enter a luminous landscape of plants, rocks, water, and other natural elements.

In March, Andrew Shewell and Ting Liu, visitor engagement associates in the Education department, interviewed Wang, the 2025 Cheng Family Foundation Visiting Artist in the Chinese Garden, at his studio in New York’s Hudson Valley. Their conversation, excerpted below, offers insight into the artist’s process. (The interview has been edited for clarity.)

Please start by introducing yourself and sharing how you became an artist.

I was born in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China, in 1962. I grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Even so, I developed a passion for Chinese calligraphy from an early age. I started practicing with brushes when I was 6 or 7 years old.

Chinese calligraphy is deeply connected to literature, poetry, and history—works by the great thinkers and writers of the past. That connection inspired me. I wanted to understand classical literature and Chinese history more deeply, and calligraphy opened that door for me.

When I paint, my process often begins with words, with poetry. From the words, images start to form.

Could you talk us through the installation?

I wanted the experience to begin the moment you enter the exhibition, which is structured like two boxes. One is the gallery space itself, and the other is formed by the silk panels suspended from the ceiling.

There are 22 large-scale, translucent silk panels floating in layers at the center of the room. The silk is a natural, pure white, which contrasts with the deep blue of the gallery walls.

I arranged the panels in five layers, with gaps between each set. As you move through the installation, you’ll see the panels through these gaps. Every movement—yours or someone else’s—changes the view. It’s like traveling through a landscape. You can experience it in one visit or return again and again, seeing something new each time.

I encourage viewers to begin looking at each panel from at least 10 feet away. From a distance, you see the whole image. Up close, you can see the brushstrokes—the energy and movement of the painting.

You mentioned brushstrokes. Do you use special brushes to paint on silk?

When I paint a single piece, I usually use four or five brushes. For Without Us, the scale is much larger, so I needed bigger and more varied brushes. Over the course of the year I spent on this project, I used around 30 different brushes.

They come in all shapes and sizes. I make one type myself from reeds that grow in the Hudson River near my home. There are hundreds of acres of reeds there—it’s very convenient. I’ve been using this kind of brush for about 15 years.

In autumn, the reed flowers bloom. I comb out the seeds and trim the flowers. Depending on their size, I use one or tie several together to make a brush. Some are for fine lines; others cover larger areas, like the surface of a rock.

I love using these handmade brushes because they create natural, sometimes rough, but powerful and expressive marks. Manufactured brushes often produce lines that are too smooth, almost too perfect. The reed brush has more character.

If you look closely at the pine tree in the exhibition, you can see the brush marks. I used a medium-sized reed brush to create the bark, which helps convey the age and texture of the tree. Then I layered more texture with a larger reed brush.

Tell us more about the ink and silk you used to create Without Us.

I used both Chinese and Japanese ink sticks. They’re both traditionally made by burning young pine branches, collecting the soot, and compressing it. You grind the ink sticks with a small amount of water to create the liquid ink itself. But because I use so much ink when painting, it takes a long time to prepare. After a few brushstrokes, the ink is gone. So, for this project, I also used bottled ink.

I also make ink from black walnuts. The black walnut tree is common in the Hudson Valley. In the spring, the fruit can be used to make wine, but in the fall, when the fruit matures and changes color, I collect it to make ink. I store it in jars, and as it ages, it darkens. Sometimes I mix old and new ink to get different shades of brown.

Painting on silk is very different from painting on paper. Silk has a slightly oily surface, so water-based ink tends to shrink and pull in as you work. Sometimes I need to go over an area more than once.

You include a few other species in the landscape. What made you choose them?

First, I wanted to honor the silkworm and the mulberry tree. Silkworms eat the tree’s leaves and then spin silk. That silk becomes the pure, beautiful material I use for painting.

Silk production is an ancient knowledge in China, developed more than 6,000 years ago. People figured out how to cultivate mulberry trees so they wouldn’t grow too tall and would produce large, healthy leaves. People also figured out when and how to feed the silkworms and how to raise them to yield the best quality silk. It’s an extraordinary legacy of human understanding.

I also included a duck and a rabbit—symbols of other life on Earth that live alongside us.

The panels of Without Us are accompanied by excerpts from classical Chinese literature, reproduced in your own calligraphy on the gallery walls. How did literature inspire the exhibition?

Many of the panels are inspired by literature, but there are multiple sources of inspiration in my work. I often say that I’m a self-taught artist, but in truth, my teachers are the old masters of Chinese art—the artists of the past and the images they left behind. They may not have left behind written words or poems, but their visual language continues to speak to me and guide me.

In the exhibition, I have included excerpts from eight different philosophers and poets who wrote about the relationship between humans and nature. Laozi (trad. sixth century BCE), for example, talks about the need to control our energy, resources, and greed. He encourages us to cherish and preserve nature. I hope visitors will move between the words on the walls and the images on the silk panels, making connections and discovering new meanings. A line of poetry from the fourth century might suddenly feel like a reflection of your own thoughts today.

What does the title Without Us mean to you?

Since moving to the United States in 1996, I’ve traveled a great deal. When I’m on an airplane looking down at the Earth, I see massive cities—Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai. It’s overwhelming to see how much we have built with steel and concrete and to wonder how much of the natural world remains untouched.

When I was a child, I was taught that humans were unique because of our ability to make tools and work efficiently. But because we make tools, we also have the power to do more damage to the Earth than any other species.

As an artist, all I can do is imagine a landscape without people. Of course, we’re still here, but I hope viewers will reflect on their role in caring for the planet. The Earth can continue with us … or without us.

What do you hope visitors will take away from Without Us?

I love California for its variety of landscapes and its incredible diversity of plants. When I first walked into The Huntington, I thought, “This is heaven on Earth.” The exhibition is in the heart of the Chinese Garden, so by the time visitors reach the gallery, they’ve already experienced half a mile of trees, flowers, and bamboo—it’s the perfect setting.

I hope people will take a moment to think about the Earth: what it looks like with us, shaped by human hands, and what it might look like without us. We should all keep this in mind so we can preserve and enjoy our planet for as long as possible. That’s my hope.

Read more about the exhibition “Wang Mansheng: Without Us.”

Miranda Claxton is the communications coordinator in the Office of Communications and Marketing at The Huntington.