Herald St

Faye Wei Wei

The wan stars danced between.

Bologna | Via Valdonica, 14, 40126 Bologna

18 September – 21 November

Preview: Friday 18 September, 5–7pm

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Faye Wei Wei’s practice is rooted in poetry, myth-making and the ways in which language, fictions and fantasy can evoke real emotion. Wei Wei's process is intertwined with her life and extends in a concurrent and dynamic way from her studio out into nature and the open air, with canvases often completed while around the city and when travelling. Her paintings and works on paper typically depict figures in charged, vibrant landscapes, often caught in moments of reflection. Flora and fauna seem to possess their own pathos and are imbued with a sense of vitality. Her visual language recalls the shifting emotional complexity of the Symbolist, Pre-Raphaelite and French Post-Impressionist painters, such as Édouard Vuillard. The exhibition borrows its title, The wan stars danced between., from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, an 1834 lyric by English poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Of her work, Wei Wei has observed: ‘I often think about paintings as portals; when you’re making them, they reveal an inner world… It feels really precious, like treasure, because painting isn’t just an image-making thing, it’s about imbuing something with a presence, reaching into another world.’

Faye Wei Wei (b.1994, London, UK; lives and works in New York, US) graduated with a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art, London, UK in 2016 followed by an MFA in Painting at Yale University, Connecticut in 2026. Portrait, a monograph on her work, was published by Éditions Lutanie in 2024. Draw in your head and sleep the long way home., her first solo institutional exhibition at MoCA Cleveland, US, continues until March 2027.

Text by Laurie Barron