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Contact: Wen-hao Tien

cynthia.scottjohnson@gmail.com

Installation image of Wen-hao Tien: It Speaks for Itself? On view at Gaslight Gallery (2022)


Wen-hao Tien: It Speaks for Itself?

It Speaks for Itself?


Curated by Adriel Luis

On view May 6, 2022 - June 25, 2022

Frederick, MD - Gaslight Gallery is pleased to present Wen-hao Tien: It Speaks for Itself? This exhibition is Tien’s first Maryland solo and represents an exciting collaboration with curator Adriel Luis. The works on view showcase her investigation of a wide range of mundane materials, and how she interprets line, sculpture and painting in the inescapable beauty of nature. She says, “Although my artistic process is about honing and evolving my thoughts and emotional senses, I am more interested in how you see it. How does a particular piece speak to you? What will you say back?”


Adriel Luis describes in his curatorial statement: “We are bombarded with so much content, constant reactions, and no shortage of words – but it remains difficult as ever to find meaning. Sometimes what cannot be communicated must instead be sensed, evoked, intuited. When every moment is followed by endless opinions, this may be the only way we can recall how to trust ourselves.


Artist Wen-hao Tien’s body of work is rich with various plays on language, but it never quite seems to be about what is said or written. Instead, the artist invites us experience how the words land on us, how they feel while ingested, and how we each uniquely respond. It Speaks for Itself? is a new conversation about our nature of communication.”

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(Left) Installation image of Wen-hao Tien: It Speaks for Itself? (2022); (Right) Wen-hao Tien, Madame Mayor (2021)

About the Artist

Wen-hao Tien is an artist and educator living in Cambridge, MA. Her studio practice is rooted in language and cross-cultural observations. She notices what many do not see, and her multi- disciplinary work brings out narratives of our changing societies, and life-in-flux. She was recently featured on NPR’s The World radio program for her project, Teach Me Your Song where she invited the public to teach her a song at her solo show in Boston’s Pao Arts Center. The result is a collection of recordings that portrays the plurality of our society. Wen-hao is also Assistant Director at Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies, and studio art faculty at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. In her professional

role, Wen-hao builds interdisciplinary scholarly communities. She earned her MPH at Columbia University, and her MFA at Lesley University College of Art and Design.


“My practice explores how identity crosses, merges, and transcends culture. Words (legible or illegible) and everyday mundane objects are my sources of inspiration. Growing up in post-cold war Asia with the previous two generations of my family displaced by natural disasters and war, my work responds to our changing societies, the environment, and our lives in flux. As an interdisciplinary artist, I have studied orthodox Chinese calligraphy with great effort. I am deeply moved by where a simple shape and curve can take me—every stroke vibrates, has music.”

About the Curator

Adriel Luis is a community organizer, artist, writer, and curator who believes that collective liberation can happen in poetic ways. He is a part of the iLL-Literacy arts collective, which creates music and media to strengthen Black and Asian coalitions, and is creative director of Bombshelltoe, a collaborative of artists and leaders from frontline communities responding to nuclear histories. Adriel is the Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice at the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. He has a degree in human ecologies from UC Davis.

(Left) Wen-hao Tien, Word Salad, (2022); (Right) Wen-hao Tien and students collaboration, Mr. Chairman (2022)

Closing Events


Closing Conversation & Participatory Event

Friday | June 24th | 7pm | RSVP

Gaslight Gallery | 118 East Church St

Featuring artist Wen-Hao Tien with

Curator Adriel Luis


The Shape of Ink | Interactive Workshop

Saturday | June 25th | 2pm | RSVP

Frederick Book Arts Center | 217 W Patrick St

Exploring spectrums of traditional mark making

through the work of Wen-hao Tien and Johan Lowie

(Left) Installation image of Wen-hao Tien: It Speaks for Itself? (2022); (Right) Wen-hao Tien, Fallen Sticks (2016).

Gaslight Gallery | 118 East Church St. | Frederick, MD | www.gaslightart.com