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Recognised for her expert ability to excavate humanity at the heart of landscapes, Yan Wang Preston (b. 1976, Henan Province, China) has created numerous acclaimed series which explore the mercurial relationship between people and place. Wang Preston’s combined interest in photography and mountain climbing have had a transformative impact upon her practice; initially inspired by climber and photojournalist Galen Rowell, she has become known for her adventurous photographic projects which encompass a variety of physical and conceptual terrain.
After moving to the UK and attaining an MA in Photography at Bradford College, Wang Preston began a practice-based PhD in Photography at the University of Plymouth. This was the genesis of her breakthrough work, the documentary series Mother River.
Over a period of four years (2010-2014), she travelled the entire 6,211km length of the Yangtze River, exploring the link between China’s topography and identity. According to the careful design of her project, she captured an image every 100km; these restrictions forced her to avoid several of the river’s ‘beauty spots’, enabling her to create a detailed, nuanced portrait of the Yangtze which challenges its conventional image. A related series of performative work, Hé-River Together, enlightened Wang Preston to the active force of the Yangtze and inaugurated her embodied connection to its vitality.
Projects such as Forest (2010-2017), a series of images depicting reforestation in China, continue Wang Preston’s focus on the association between humans and nature. Photographs of mature trees domesticated by the shopping districts and transport stations of Chongqing are juxtaposed with haunting depictions of deserted ‘model town’ landscapes in Haidong Development Zone, emphasising the moral complexities at the heart of industrialisation. Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing environment, her work invites the viewer to dwell within an experience of place, examining their own relationship to the delicate transience of natural and urban worlds.
1 June – 1 July
16 July – 5 September
Wednesday 28 July, 6:30pm
Awards
Shiseido Photographer Prize at the Three Shadows Photography Annual Award in Beijing, China (2016).
1st Prize in Professional Commission, Syngenta Photography Award (2017),
Hundred Heroines, the Royal Photographic Society (2018),
1st Prize in Professional Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards (2019),
Solo exhibitions
56th Venice Biennale (2015)
Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum (2015)
Wuhan Art Museum, China (2015),
Gallery of Photography Ireland (2017)
Dubai Photo (2016)
Impressions Gallery, UK (2017)
Forty Years of Contemporary Chinese Photography, OCAT, Shenzhen, China (2018)
Open Eye Gallery, UK (2019)
Ten by Ten, Fotofest, USA (2020)
The Art of Trees, Gund Gallery, Ohio, USA (2021)
Three works from the series ‘Mother River’
Mother River, shown in London for the first time, is a conceptual photographic journey taken over a period of four years (2010-2014) along the entire 6,211km of the Yangtze, China’s ‘Mother River’. From the remote high Tibetan Plateau, through the Three Gorges and on to the river’s end at Shanghai, the photographs capture the dramatic shifts in landscape and offers a perspective on China’s present-day development. Preston used Google Earth to identify the coordinates of sixty-three locations marking every 100 km of the river’s course. It was these sixty-three ‘Y-points’ that she set out to reach and to photograph, come what may. Mother River is a modern-day adventure. A rigorous artistic concept and an epic yet uncontrollable physical process that marks the beginning of Preston’s performative photographic practice.
If you wish to see more from the collection contact [email protected]
Three works from the series ‘Forest’
Continuing her work in China, the exhibition includes Forest, an award winning body of work, for which Preston spent eight years (2010-2017) investigating the politics of recreating forests and the ‘natural’ environment in new Chinese cities. Following the trail of old trees to new towns, Wang Preston embarks on a journey of erasure and contradictions. The project highlights the attempts and failures of recreating nature for urban consumption at a scale that is unsettling.
If you wish to see more from the collection contact [email protected]
Four photographs sold as a set
A recent work With Love. From An Invader, sees Preston connect with her chosen home, here in the UK. For this durational piece, Yan Wang Preston walked to the same love-heart-shaped rhododendron bush at Sheddon Clough, Burnley, Lancashire, UK, from 17th March 2020 to the 16th March 2021 at the frequency of every other day. A photograph of the rhododendron was taken each time, in identical manners, always at half an hour before sunset. The exhibition includes a series of four photographic prints from these visits.
