Little After Sunset: Allison Lu Wang

MEY is pleased to present Little After Sunset, a solo exhibition featuring work by Los Angeles-based artist Allison Lu Wang. A sprawling ode to the city of angels, the presented paintings and accompanying installations are kaleidoscopic visions of a city existing at the edges of reality and imagination. This is the gallery’s first exhibition at their Sunset Boulevard location.

For Allison, Los Angeles is both setting and muse. Her layered dreamscapes feature iconic Hollywood landmarks and lush flora, speaking to the dichotomy of the city and resulting in worlds that are at once easily recognizable and entirely foreign. Inspired by her relationships, travels, and environment, Allison’s artistic process begins by handcrafting detailed collages from personal photographs, donated magazines, and coffee table books. Once complete, these collages are digitized and printed onto linen and canvas. Through oil painting and weaving fabrics such as silk onto the canvas, the artist personalizes her mixed-media portraits.

Allison’s interdisciplinary approach to art making—a blend of printmaking, painting, and sewing—is heavily inspired by her fashion design background. On The Way Home (2023) demonstrates the artist’s mastery of silk’s delicate transparency, while pieces such as Fall In Deep (2023) employ heavier knitted fabrics that conjure a harmonious blend of strength and fragility. Upon moving back to Los Angeles in the midst of a global pandemic, Allison found solace by filling her studio with potted plants. In her latest series, a variety of plants painted directly from life adorn the canvases that portray the artist’s signature palm-lined street scenes and glimmering disco balls. Most prominently featured among these is the rare pink princess, which takes center stage in Another Night (2023). The artist’s undeniable prowess as a landscape painter is evinced through Paradise (2021), which journeys across deserted mountainscapes, verdant foliage, aquatic pools, and celestial bodies.

Altering time and space, the presented artworks are at once an homage to contemporary California and to a nostalgic nowhereland. Blooming and picturesque, the pieces in Little After Sunset invite their viewers to get lost—and be found again.