Dr Yan Wang Preston (b. 1976) Chinese-British visual artist with sustained interests in landscape representation, identities, migration and the environment. With photography as her primary media, her solo, collaborative and participatory projects employ still and moving image, sound, performance, installation and the artist book to explore complex ideas from multiple angles. She was awarded a PhD in Photography by the University of Plymouth in 2018.
Wang Preston’s work is characterised by long-term and rigorous research. For her first major project, Mother River (2010-2014), she photographed the entire 6,211km Yangtze River in China at precise 100km intervals on a large-format plate camera. Her second project, Forest (2010-2017), investigated the complexities, hopes and failures of constructed urban nature in China by following the adaptation journeys of transplanted old trees. Since 2020, Wang Preston has shifted her gaze from China to the UK, where she lives. With Love. From an Invader (2020-2021) saw her photographing the same rhododendron bush on a South Pennines moorland every other day for an entire year. It produced a four-panel visual-audio installation with a 38-minute soundtrack written by her collaborator Monty Adkins, presenting visual and sonic ‘data’ in defence of the rhododendron habitat.
Wang Preston’s work is internationally acclaimed gaining 1st Prize in Professional Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards (2019), 1st Prize in Professional Commission, Syngenta Photography Prize (2017) and the Shiseido Photographer Prize at the Three Shadows Photography Annual Award in Beijing, China (2016). She was recognised as one of the RPS Hundred Heroines in 2018. Her work is held in the collections in China, the Uk and with private collectors internationally.
Her solo exhibitions have been presented at leading public institutions in the UK and China, and in the Swatch Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale (2015). Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including The Time is Right, Jeddah Photo 2022, Facing Britain: British Documentary since the 1960s (2021-2022, currently on tour), Ten by Ten at Fotofest, Houston, USA (2020), Sony World Photography Awards (international touring show, 2019), 40 Years of Contemporary Chinese Photography, Shenzhen, China (2018), and Dubai Photo (2016). Her first solo exhibition in London, Yan Wang Preston: With Love, was presented at Messums London in June 2022.
