003 "Crossing the Dragon Gate" from the "Lucky You" series

Marian Ang
"Crossing the Dragon Gate" from the "Lucky You" series (2024)
Acrylic on canvas
40 x 30 cm

Artist statement

Marian Ang is a contemporary painter born in London and based in Hong Kong. A graduate of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Marian is 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 and interior genre painting with precious cultural objects and banal everyday paraphernalia, Marian brings together an eclectic range of stories about the world and our lived experiences today. 

Her most recent exhibitions include "A Room of One's Own" at Touch Gallery (2023), named after the 1929 essay by the English writer Virginia Woolf and inspired by the personal spaces that great women artists carved out for themselves, and “Lucky You” (2024) which examines the notion of “Chineseness” through classical imperial Chinese porcelain wares and everyday diasporic motifs that grew out of feng shui beliefs, superstitions, and intergenerational wishes for luck and fortune.