Wonder Women: Figurative Art of the Asian Diaspora

The first book to highlight Asian diasporic women and nonbinary artists engaged with figurative painting, sculpture, and drawing. Genny Lim’s poem “Wonder Woman” follows a narrator who observes the everyday lives of Asian women—across generations, countries, and socioeconomic backgrounds—wondering if their experiences reflect her own. The poem centers Asian women as its protagonists and asks what commonalities exist between them. Often underrepresented in museum collections and important exhibitions, Asian diasporic women and nonbinary artists are now receiving recognition; this book expands on two landmark shows of figurative art curated by Kathy Huang, organized in response to increasing anti-Asian racism and violence during the Covid-19 pandemic. The forty featured artists, each represented with four or more works and a personal statement, subvert stereotypes and assert their identities in places where they have historically been marginalized. While some featured artists explore identity through self-portraiture, others depict the heroines in their lives, offering works that highlight family, community, and history. Several of the works address colonial and patriarchal structures in the West, legends, and myths. With essays, paintings, sculptures, and drawings created within the last four years, this book is a current, open-ended collection of contemporary Asian diasporic experiences.