Monsters, for artist Sudi Wang, are not the creatures we should fear. They are the figures that help us understand ourselves. In her upcoming exhibition, Beyond Relief: The Monsters of Sudi Wang, visitors will encounter towering prints, intimate hand-pulled impressions, and immersive installations that invite them into a world where monsters become mirrors of human identity.
“Monsters exist in contrast to gods, like yin and yang,” Wang explains. “We often ignore or demonize them, yet I find their creation more vibrant and compelling. They resist fixed definitions, and in that resistance, they offer freedom.” In many Asian traditions, she notes, monsters are tied to social pressures and intense human emotions. Fragmented, strange, and layered, her monsters speak to grief, migration, survival, and change. They are, as she describes them, “deeply human, even if they don’t appear so.”
The works themselves are as varied as the monsters they depict. Some prints stretch several feet, suspended in midair; others are delicate hand-carved impressions on fabric or paper. “I work mostly intuitively,” Wang says. “Each cut leads to the next, and the image slowly reveals itself.” Carving becomes both destruction and creation — a meditative act that echoes the exhibition’s closing theme of Nirvana.
“Woodcut printmaking is an art of carving away, by removing the negative space to reveal the entity — just like Nirvana, to let it go.” — Sudi Wang
Her process is deeply physical, demanding pressure, precision, and patience. Every groove in the woodblock becomes a record of her effort. Each print, pulled by hand, emerges slightly different from the last — imperfect, alive, and utterly unique.
At the end of the exhibition, viewers encounter her Nirvana series: prints that meditate on letting go of fear and desire, echoing Buddhist notions of awakening. Here, the monsters transform once again — from frightening figures to companions on the path toward release.
And if you ask Wang which monster she secretly loves most, she’ll tell you about Huli Jing, the Chinese fox spirit whose shifting forms reflect centuries of cultural change, anxieties about femininity, and questions of power. Like Wang’s prints, the Huli Jing reminds us that monsters are never just fantasy — they are stories we tell about ourselves.In Beyond Relief, monsters are not warnings. They are invitations.