Best of Boston

2021 Best Artist

Yu-Wen Wu

This Taipei-born and Boston-raised artist found her widest audience to date with Lantern Stories, a breathtaking collection of 31 illuminated orbs that hung outside Chinatown this year, each decorated to tell stories of the immigrant experience. It was a stunning exemplar of Wu’s work with abstract drawings and video installations, whose depictions of climate-change and economic data are beautiful from a distance and thought-provoking up close. Boston awaits the story she’ll decide to tell next, and how.