Wes Lang

American artist Wes Lang creates provoking artworks, primarily on canvas and paper and featuring a universe of striking characters, that intend to inspire and motivate. Populating his works with everything from skulls, grim reapers and country music icons to flora, birds and horses, Lang’s imagery has the capacity to reach a wide-ranging audience but is nonetheless deeply personal.

Born in New Jersey in 1972, many of the figures and practices that define Lang’s work trace back to his youth. He had an early interest in skulls: inexplicably captivated by them, he started doodling skulls constantly in elementary school. Lang was also drawn to collecting early on, gathering ephemera (which he has referred to as ‘talismans’) such as toys, ads from comic books and novelty store catalogues. These objects and their imagery have become crucial source materials for Lang’s work, and he continues to dedicate significant time to locating such references.

Working compulsively, Lang’s unique visual language fuses a range of influences, from Americana, sticker books and imagery of monsters to the work of Cy Twombly, Francis Bacon and Jean-Michel Basquiat. At times incorporating enigmatic text into his work, Lang encourages viewers to engage cognitively with his imagery and form meanings for themselves.

At the heart of all Lang’s work are his spiritual interests – his connection to Tao Te Ching, the central Taoist text, and the lectures of Ram Dass. Lang refers to the former text as a manual of how to live and maintains that acceptance of death is the only way to be completely alive and present. This fundamental belief underscores his iconographies, which aim to remind his viewers of what they can achieve in life in the short time they have, and encourages them to believe in themselves.

Lang’s work can be found in notable international collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Damien Hirst’s Murderme. He lives and works in Los Angeles.