Lands’ Brooches · Dongyi Wu
Opening Reception Friday, October 30, 2026, 6–9 PM
On view Saturdays, 1–5 PM
October 30 – December 5, 2026
This exhibition brings together No Longer Human and The Black in Dark, tracing a longer development in Dongyi Wu’s practice: from constructing situations and placing figures within them to investigating the conditions that make those situations possible. Across the exhibition, the “brooch” emerges as a spatial logic beyond adornment: a way of setting apart a field within a larger land.
In No Longer Human, Wu constructed three imaginary landscapes-a beach, street, and park-each forming a distinct field. A discarded strip of salmon becomes the central character within these recognizable yet unreal environments, while also becoming part of the landscape itself. Rather than illustrating its source novel, the scenes shape how the salmon is seen and overlooked. Fragmented viewpoints and low perspectives-elliptical or elongated-reconstruct the scene from the salmon’s position.
The Black in Dark developed from a poem Wu wrote after a night road trip to Marfa, Texas, where the landscape disappeared into darkness. Rather than constructing a scene, Wu turns to the conditions through which a landscape becomes perceptible in darkness. Black becomes not emptiness, but a field where positions and relationships lose stability; headlights briefly return fragments to visibility before they shift again. The work examines how boundaries, positions, and points of reference allow distinctions within a field to emerge and be temporarily re-formed.
Dongyi Wu is a Chinese-born artist currently based in Bakersville, North Carolina, United States. Working across wearable art, soft sculpture, installation, and image-based practice, Wu creates sculptural works between body, image, and space. Rooted in fashion design, metalsmithing, and art jewelry, her practice explores perception, spatial relationships, and the conditions that shape how bodies and objects are encountered.
Wu is currently an artist-in-residence at Penland School of Craft. She has recently completed artist residencies at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft; University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts; and Contemporary Craft. Wu received her MFA in Metal and Jewelry Design from Rochester Institute of Technology in the United States, her BA in Jewelry Art Design from Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology in China, and a dual degree in Fashion Design and Engineering from the same institution. Wu’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including at JOYA 2020 in Barcelona and Schmuck 2018 in Munich, and in eight solo exhibitions. She was winner of the Preziosa Young Design Competition 2020 in Italy. Her work is held in the collection of Le Arti Orafe Jewellery School & Academy in Florence and in private collections.
Website: https://www.dongyiwu.com
Instagram: @dongyi.w or @dongyiwu.wearable.systems
