In conversation
Terra Keck and Jan Dickey caught up with artist Weihui Lu a couple of weeks after she completed a residency at Wave Hill in the Bronx. At the time, Weihui was reflecting on that experience while also preparing for her current solo show, when there is no longer a danger of frost, at Tempest Gallery in Ridgewood, Queens. An installation artist with roots in Chinese landscape painting, Weihui continues to explore impermanence, a delicate and sparing use of material, and humankind’s relationship to the natural environment. Her installation at Tempest draws its source material from an aging greenhouse she spent time contemplating during her residency at Wave Hill—understood as a physical embodiment of human systems of care, including their inevitable collapse and repair.
Rather than focusing on specific projects, Jan and Terra spoke with Weihui to better understand the philosophy that underpins her work. Their conversation touched on the difficulty of documenting ephemeral practices, the politics of fragility, and her views on legacy and intimacy. For clarity, the interviewers’ questions have been combined in the transcription that follows.
Your work often feels connected to the presence of the viewer, as if it only exists when someone is there with it. You’ve mentioned that even when you’ve tried to document your work, it doesn’t feel accurate.
Yes, exactly. I’m really interested in that ephemeral quality, where the piece changes over time or even disappears completely. A photograph can’t capture that—it’s just a record. Sometimes documenting can damage the work or misrepresent its energy, and photographs can’t capture the full sensory experience of being in the space with the piece. It’s not just about what you see. It’s about how you’re aware of your body, how light changes, how your perspective shifts as you move. So much of our time is spent disassociated from the here and now, to the detriment of our quality of life. Installation work, or ephemerality, is an attempt to find refuge from that. It is a request to pay attention — to be here.
Your work feels very delicate, both in material and presence. Is that a conscious resistance to art market expectations?
I think so. I’m really drawn to delicate work, which I see as a counterpoint to objects that are consumed by collectors. There’s this ongoing idea of durability in the art market—things need to last, to be archived. Oil painting, for instance, remains dominant because it’s portable, durable, and easy to store. The first interesting paintings I made were on unstretched canvas scraps pinned together on the wall in different compositions. Something about the freedom of knowing that the work was not meant to be consumed, along with all that that entails, was incredibly freeing.
When you can own something there can be a casualness to the relationship; its value is quantified. I am interested in work that invites a different kind of relationship, sometimes even just between it and myself while making. How does it feel to walk carefully around something because your movement, your touch, might destroy it? Not because of its worth in a monetary sense, but because it feels alive. Maybe it’s become more about the psychological practice of care.
So, delicacy becomes a form of resistance?
Exactly. It’s a form of resistance to the mentalities of commodification and consumption. It’s not just about whether it literally can sell or not––though installation work generally is not as marketable as say, paintings––but more about a different way of relating. To relate not as a buyer and owner, or as a seller with a product, but as a living being to another living being.
Has your interest in the ephemeral evolved over time?
Yes. I think it’s also become more connected to environmental concerns. When you think about all the human-made things that are harming the planet, part of the problem is that they don’t decay. Plastic, for example, doesn’t break down at an organic rate, and that’s part of what’s causing so much damage. There’s something dangerous in our desire to make things last forever.
Do you think that desire is connected to a fear of death?
Definitely. It’s tied to our ideas about death and legacy. We want to believe that what we create will endure, that it will matter to future generations. Many artists feel that way. But I also think that desire comes from ego—the idea that what we do is important enough to be preserved. It can be the individual version of the colonial desire for continuity of the empire. And at least on a practical level, it requires the continuity of empire to happen: the canonization of art generally only occurs in societies that have the economic structures and political stability to support that.
You’ve mentioned before your early work’s connection to Chinese landscape painting. Does that history still play a role in your current practice?
Landscape painting historically served as a kind of proxy for being in nature, especially as cities grew and people lost direct access to the land. These paintings became meditative tools, ways to spiritually or imaginatively enter the landscape. I’m still rooted in that. But in some ways, my current practice feels in opposition to traditional Chinese landscape painting, especially its emphasis on lineage and preserving a cultural elite. That impulse is tied to nationalism and the belief that your culture must be preserved. I feel that tension in myself, but I also see how destructive it can be. So I’m trying to find a way to live and work without being driven by it.
Do you want to be remembered?
I’m not sure. Part of me—the typical artist part—wants my work to survive. But another part of me doesn’t. I want the work to be remembered, but not necessarily in connection with me. It would be nice if it felt more anonymous.
Like an artifact someone finds?
Yes, like a statue that someone stumbles upon and wonders what it was for. Who was it made for? Why was it made? Ideally, though, I want it to feel personal, to have an emotional impact.
So intimacy still matters to you?
Yes, absolutely. The art that stays with me is the kind where, even though the artist is gone, I feel like I’m having a conversation with them across time. But I don’t know how you achieve that intimacy without also grappling with legacy and ego.
Are there any artists or works that have given you that feeling?
So many. I remember standing in front of a Joan Mitchell painting that made me cry. I felt like in that moment I understood, deeply, how she felt while painting it — recognizing that we had gone through a similar emotional state despite living in different times and lives. Maybe it was a projection, but it felt real to me.
Do you think the intimacy of an experience like that matters more than audience size?
I do. A thousand people might scroll past something on their phones, and it might not stick with anyone. But if five people experience something deeply, that feels so much more meaningful.
That reminds me—have you heard of the artist who arranges rocks along the side of the road on his own land?
Yes! I think he’s in upstate New York. He inherited land from his family and has spent decades arranging rocks along a road that passes through his property. That’s his audience—whoever happens to drive by. He doesn’t show his work or participate in the art world professionally, but he’s fully devoted to it. It’s beautiful. The language he’s developed with those materials is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.
So maybe it just comes down to what satisfies you?
Yeah, it’s personal. What satisfies one person might be completely different for someone else.
Thank you for sharing all of this, Weihui.
Thank you for this conversation!
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Weihui Lu’s solo exhibition, when there is no longer a danger of frost, is on view at Tempest Gallery from May 8 through June 14, 2025. An artist talk will be held on the final day of the show, June 14, at 3pm. Tempest Gallery is located at 1642 Weirfield Street in Ridgewood, Queens, and is open Wednesday through Saturday from 1 to 6pm. @weihui_lu
About the writers: Terra Keck is an artist, writer, and curator based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her MFA from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and her BFA from Ball State University. She co-hosts the comedy-educational podcast “Witch Yes!” and is a curatorial partner at Field Projects. Her work has been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, The Art Newspaper, and Oxford American Arts, and can be found in permanent institutional collections in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Hawaii, and California. @herlovelyface
Jan Dickey is a painter and curator based in Brooklyn, NY. He earned an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (2017) and a BFA from the University of Delaware (2009). Dickey has attended several artist residencies, including the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts in New Berlin, NY (2023); ARTnSHELTER in Tokyo, Japan (2019); the Kimmel Harding Nelson Art Center in Nebraska City, NE (2018); and the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT (2017). Dickey has presented solo exhibitions around the United States and internationally in Tokyo, Japan. He has been the subject of reviews and interviews in Two Coats of Paint, Arte Fuse, and Art Spiel, and written for Whitehot Magazine and Quiet Lunch. @jan.dickey