Marian Ang (b. 1987) is a London-born artist based in Hong Kong.
An art historian by training and a former consultant for UNESCO in the field of cultural heritage protection, exploring material culture in contemporary life is the starting point for Marian’s practice. The idea of an ordinary object holding extraordinary meaning first piqued her curiosity as a child, when she encountered the piles of random objects that her father had meticulously hoarded. Combining the symbolism of traditional Western still life or interior genre painting with precious cultural objects and banal everyday paraphernalia brings together an eclectic range of stories about the world and our lived experiences today. This became the basis of Marian’s first series, "Home Sweet Home".
Marian’s series "A Room of One's Own" was named after the 1929 essay by the English writer Virginia Woolf. It is inspired by the personal spaces that great women artists carved out for themselves, the belongings they chose to bring into their lives, and the beauty and simplicity of the everyday life they led. This series also engages with Louise Bourgeois' idea of the Femme Maison and questions of female identity in the domestic and working spheres.
Born in London to Singaporean Chinese parents, Marian considers the notion of “Chineseness” in her series “Lucky You”. Building on research relating to classical imperial Chinese porcelain wares, Marian’s paintings playfully examine motifs that grew out of feng shui beliefs, superstitions, and wishes for luck and fortune which have evolved to become part-and-parcel of the everyday furnishings of the Chinese diaspora. These mun shou teacups, longevity buns, peach vases and dragon jars represent intergenerational hopes and dreams, tapping into diasporic experiences for overseas Chinese individually and collectively and exploring the crossroads of East-West identity.