Diya Wang. Rhode Island School of design. New Talent Award Nominee 2021

Article / NewTalentsByKlimt02 Artists

Published: 29.06.2021

Diya Wang

Author:: Rhode Island School of Design

Edited by:: Klimt02

Edited at:: Barcelona

Edited on:: 2021

Diya's work thoughtfully considers the close relationship between jewelry and garment through playful strategies of juxtaposition, shifts in scale, and surrealist compositions. These strategies serve to highlight the ways in which both jewelry and clothing mirror the complexity of identity, while simultaneously emphasizing the crucial role the body plays in activating these formats.
/ Seth Papac

Name of graduation student: Diya Wang.
Name of guiding teachers: Tracy Steepy, Seth Papac, Timothy Veske-McMahon.

Nominated by Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, United States.

Diya's work thoughtfully considers the close relationship between jewelry and garment through playful strategies of juxtaposition, shifts in scale, and surrealist compositions. These strategies serve to highlight the ways in which both jewelry and clothing mirror the complexity of identity, while simultaneously emphasizing the crucial role the body plays in activating these formats. Her education in both jewelry and metalsmithing and fashion design has nurtured her ability to cultivate desire, as well as her nimbleness in creating non-gendered and body-inclusive works. Hybrid Garment is a celebration of individuality and a dynamic exploration of the potential of jewelry and garment to coalesce.
/ Seth Papac

Summary of the Master Thesis:
Hybrid Garment is a series of works that explores the overlap between fashion and Jewelry. As an artist and designer, my background and training prepared me to dissect and rebuild the relationship between and potential of jewelry and garments. The potential of hybridity serves as a methodology to combine and conflate the two disciplines. Hybrid Garment simplifies the complex categories of fashion and jewelry.

I challenge the conventional notions of body adornment and the expectations of how these formats are typically worn on the body. I utilize the recognizable formal qualities of jewelry and clothing and subvert their functions to create a hybridized body of work. I deliberately borrow and exaggerate jewelry and clothing’s formal elements to magnify their relationship to the body through shifts in scale, material, and function. I reassemble mass-produced jewelry and manufactured garments by hand in some works to embody my training in both jewelry and fashion. This work represents a synthesis of the study of form and my critical approach towards contemporary jewelry and fashion aesthetics. Surrealism and juxtaposition are examples of strategies I utilize in my work to reject logic, reason, and natural order. The result is one-of-a-kind pieces meant to excite the desire within people to wear them on the living body.

The hybridity of jewelry and clothing impacts the way we see body adornment, and it influences the way we see art. Hybrid Garment counters the problem of some clothing and art jewelry never meeting the body. Most jewelry artists and fashion designers spend time on the ideas behind their work and how to express the relationship between the work and the body. Their works are presented through the act of looking in art galleries, museums, or distant drawers, while Hybrid Garment insists on being worn on the street, bus station, and in the supermarket. This is amplified by the interactive and seductive quality of the street space, reshaping and revealing the identity of the wearer —allowing people to re-examine the intimate relationship between clothing, jewelry, and body.

The essence of this work carries the idea of inclusivity. Hybrid Garment is made to be worn by a diverse group of people rather than limited to specific groups. It embraces people with different genders, hopes to reduce the hierarchy of socioeconomic groups, and strives to express the wearer's individuality. Hybrid Garment expands social possibilities and allows for new narratives around the relationship between art and life.
/ Diya Wang

More work and contacts:
Phone: 541-868-5430
RISD Email: dwang02@risd.edu
Secondary Email: diyawangstudio@gmail.com
Instagram: @diya__wang

Find out more about the courses at Rhode Island School of Design.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Pearl Drip, 2021
Mass-produced white shirt, plastic pearl chains, plastic pearl buttons, brass.
48 x18 x 3 cm
Photo by: Melissa Nyquist
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Pearl Drip, 2021
Mass-produced white shirt, plastic pearl chains, plastic pearl buttons, brass.
48 x18 x 3 cm
Photo by: Rob Chron
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Big Boss, 2021
Muslin, spray paint on 3D printed resin.
28 x 20 x 10 cm
Photo by: Melissa Nyquist
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Too Many Rings, Not Enough Hands, 2021
Lamb leather, mass-produced rings.
35 x 14 cm
Photo by: Rob Chron
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Bracelet Shrug, Glam Hoodie, 2021
Jersey cotton, mass produced bracelets.
Jersey cotton, cotton drawstring, mass produced jewels, sterling silver.
Photo by: Melissa Nyquist
From series: Hybrid Garment
40 x 18 x 8 cm
20 x 11 x 9 cm
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Glove and Bangle Stack, 2021
Mass-produced gloves, gold plate on mass-produced bracelets and brass chains.
99 x 6 x 2.75 cm
Photo by: Rob Chron
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.

Diya Wang
Body piece: Power Cuffs, 2021
Muslin, sterling silver plated steel.
Photo by: Melissa Nyquist, Rob Chron
From series: Hybrid Garment
© By the author. Read Klimt02.net Copyright.