Augustina Wang’s fantastical world evokes a style of magical realism that is uniquely hers, embracing the immersive aspects of fantasy that function as a means of escapism, allowing more playful, nuanced, and expansive notions of identity to flourish. The femmes that populate Wang’s fantasyland include a cast of characters that present as alter egos, avatars, archetypes, proxies, fantasies, monsters, heroes, and anti-heroes—a visualization of the artist’s multitudes—the nuanced and numerous selves that cohabitate in one body. Beautifully rendered in oil and pastel, the protagonists that occupy Wang’s imaginative universe are full of dualities; they are emotive warriors—seductive and guarded, naked and sheathed, coy and commanding—wearing suits of armor adorned with hearts and sprigs of pink baby’s breath, delicate and muscular forces to be reckoned with.

While Wang’s fantasies and fictions operate, in part, as a form of escapism—seeking relief from the confines and pressures of the everyday—her work is also firmly planted in reality, providing a spectacular lens to communicate the elusive and abstract forces of power that loom large in the real world, helping us to untangle the power dynamics that animate and evade our daily lives and encounters, embedded in our identities, relationships, experiences, and traumas. To make sense of these gargantuan forces, the kind of imaginative thinking and playful expression of self that Wang presents feels so much more than just escapism; it feels crucial. Imaginative thinking engenders imaginative alternatives—alternatives that are critical to our mutual flourishing and evolution, both as individuals and as cohabitants on Earth.

Sow & Tailor
3027 S. Grand Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90007
On view through May 13, 2023