Matthew Wong
skin Skin is something to peel back Layer by layer, fold by fold Until you are at its core, When you may stay as long As you please, and when you're done You just seal it back up Like a package waiting for the next person To come along, like a message in a bottle. May 12, 2013, 12:01 am
Matthew Wong
the new world paintings from los angeles 2016 cheim & read
Matthew Wong in Los Angeles john yau It is remarkable how much art history Matthew Wong was able to internalize in such a brief period, as his career spanned a little more than five years. In 2012, shortly after graduating from the City University of Hong Kong School of Creative Media with an MFA in photography, and having published three groups of thematically related photographs in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, as well as having contributed reviews to South China Morning Post and Time Out Hong Kong, he began drawing. In 2014, in an interview in the online magazine Altermodernists (October 29, 2014), Wong stated that he initially started with a sketchbook and a bottle of ink and making “a mess every day randomly.” When I reviewed Wong’s debut exhibition at Karma in New York (March 22 – April 29, 2018) for Hyperallergic, I wrote that I was instantly “struck by where he [had] gotten himself in paint.” Inspired by diverse sources from both Western and Eastern art, as well as building on his practice of calligraphy (its many distinct strokes), there was nothing tentative in Wong’s work. Rather, I felt that he had defined a territory all his own. In his paintings and works on paper, Wong envisioned an earthly paradise inflected with joy, yearning, serenity, and melancholy. Made of disparate brushstrokes and precise dabs of color, Wong’s painted paradise convincingly evoked a complete and self-sufficient world. From what I now know of his work, this vision was present from the beginning.
A few years later, when I saw and reviewed the exhibition, Matthew Wong: Footprints in the Wind, Ink Drawings 2013 – 2017, at Cheim & Read (May 5 – September 3, 2021), I realized once again how central drawing and mark making were to his practice. With these works, done in ink on rice paper, which means each mark is decisive and cannot be removed, it also became amply evident that Wong was both adventurous and exacting from the outset. This is what characterizes everything that Wong undertook. Instead of growing into his work, and slowly achieving what we call a mature style, as many artists do, Wong began with a sense of mark making, a plucky spirit, and a fertile imagination, which infused everything he made. He melded this with his sensitivity to archetypal narratives, such as the “quest” and “voyage and return.” According to the artist, he wanted to “activate nostalgia, both personal and collective.” All the works in this exhibition are dated 2016, when Wong was traveling in the United States, visiting New York and Michigan, (February – April) and living in Los Angeles for three months (May – July), before deciding to move back to Canada. It was while he was living in Los Angeles during the summer, and briefly settled, that the bulk of these works were made. Knowing his residence there was not likely permanent explains why many of them are modest in scale; it also suggests that the subjects included the city’s proximity to the beach and desert, as well as the citizens’ penchant for hedonism and bodily display. One feels that heat and light in the salmon pink skin of the torso seen from behind in Untitled, for example. At the same time, the sheer number of works reminded me of something Wong said in the Altermodernists interview: Art is all encompassing in my daily life. When I’m not working, I’m at the library doing research into the history of art, figuring out where I can fit into the greater dialogue between artists throughout time […] Wong was a combination of restlessness and concentrated focus, someone in search. I think this sense of searching, which haunts us all, is why Wong’s works speaks to so many viewers.
While critics have pointed out Wong’s love for Henri Matisse and David Hockney as inspirations, it is also clear from the works done in Los Angeles that he also took something from the fantastical mountain landscapes of Wayne Thiebaud and made it his own, as in The Human Cloud and Untitled, with a red sun floating in a mustard yellow sky between two blackish mountain peaks. He was not afraid to embrace the work of artists whose work spoke to him, which suggests something of his confidence. Wong’s fearless desire to fit into what he called “the greater dialogue” tacitly admits that he had no interest in being seen as an “outsider” artist, despite being largely self taught. This is what he shares with artists as disparate as Joseph Cornell, Jasper Johns, and Robert Ryman. This desire casts a light on Wong’s work on paper, Bather and Turtle, which can be read as the artist’s imaginative response to Matisse’s Bathers with Turtle (1907-08). In Matisse’s painting three nude women are gathered around a turtle. Even though one woman appears to be feeding the turtle, none of them are looking at the creature or at each other. In Wong’s painting a lone male figure is hunkered down, reaching out to touch the turtle. The man’s gesture of attention and the fact that he is looking at the turtle and is not self-absorbed, as the three figures in Matisse’s painting are, results in a very different work. I think this is one reason why Wong was fearless when it came to being inspired by other artists; he knew that the content as well as the marks and color would be his own. Isn’t that what comes across in Dedicated to Forrest Bess and Albert Pinkham Ryder? Neither Bess nor Ryder would ever use a deep saturated blue or paint a brushy layer of yellow over green. Done in acrylic on paper, Wong was not trying to compete with the artists he admired. I think his approach was more subversive and indirect. He loved something but he did not want to imitate it. Think about the moody reds, blues, and blacks in New Day. Done in acrylic on a canvas measuring 40 x 30 inches, there is no direct source that one can point to. The smoldering reds framing the icy deep blue and light-drinking blacks evoke a nuanced state of feeling, which we cannot quite name. Wong has taken the well-known art historical motif of a window in a room, a rectangle within a rectangle, and made it completely his own. This is what we have to recognize in his work.
Moreover, having done it once he does not return and produce variations. He was not interested in branding himself or developing a signature style. The modesty in the scale underscores his adaptability to the physical circumstances in which he was working. The other thing that strikes me about the works that Wong made in 2016 was the variety of marks he used, the different surfaces he articulated, and the range of scales he worked in. The viscosity of the medium was clearly important to him, as he sometimes worked thick and creamily and other times applied a thin veil of paint or made long calligraphic strokes rather than a series quick daubs. Each subject seemed to demand a different approach. Did he see it in his mind’s eye and then paint it or did he paint it and then see it? Recognizing that transcribing a three-dimensional world to a two-dimensional surface is inherently metaphorical, Wong explored the seams between spatial dimensionality and flatness in order to tease out his content, as in Clear Day, with its lone figure seen on a beach, framed by the two inexplicable, tapering mounds in the foreground. Look at what he does in Untitled, and the metaphysical distance that exists between the hands reaching up to press against the window, which frames a salmon rectangle (is it the sea?) beneath a dark blue one (is it the night sky?). From his use of ink on rice paper to the different densities of acrylic he applies to paper or canvas, you never feel that Wong settled down. This is also true of his use of color, which changes from painting to painting. Consider how the palette and mood changes in Infinity, with its use of grays, blacks, and dirty pinks. Alongside these figurative works, Wong did a number of abstract paintings on paper that should be better known, as they add another dimension to our understanding of his work. I am thinking of five works on paper measuring 12 x 9 inches and done in turmeric, cumin, and deep orange grounds, suggesting that Wong might have thought of them as a related group. While one sees Wong’s repeated use of an almond shaped ellipse whose ends are tightly pinched, the works are not variations on a theme. Interested as he is in archetypes, Wong never worked from an ideal form.
In each of these five works Wong’s depicted a self-contained form made of a vertical almond-shape surrounded by a pattern, overlapping forms, or repeated marks. As well as I know Wong’s work, and as often as I have written about it, these works came as a surprise. They are not landscape or figures, but unexplainable things that suggest female anatomy and a symbolic form. And yet, the transformations that Wong make to this archetypal shape push each of the works into a domain where familiarity and association fall away and we don’t know exactly what we are looking at. That sense of enigma is one of Wong’s guiding lights. The Cycle, Blue Chamber, Divine Order, Virgin Light, and One Day It Will All Make Sense constitute a mysterious body of work within Wong’s sprawling, compelling oeuvre. Isn’t every artist’s dream to make something that is entirely their own? Isn’t that what Wong was able to achieve in a few short years?
Clear Day, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/8 x 9 1/4 in. / 30.8 x 23.5 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
The Thinker, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 9 1/8 x 12 1/4 in. / 23.2 x 31.1 cm.
Lightning, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 9 1/8 x 12 1/4 in. / 23.2 x 31.1 cm.
Dedicated to Forrest Bess and Albert Pinkham Ryder, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
The Searchers, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Narcissus, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 9 1/8 x 12 1/4 in. / 23.2 x 31.1 cm.
Intrigue, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
The Beyond, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
After Hours, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 9 1/8 x 12 1/4 in. / 23.2 x 31.1 cm.
Beach at Night, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Bather and Turtle, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Together, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Afterglow, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
The Wall, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Longing, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 9 1/8 x 12 1/4 in. / 23.2 x 31.1 cm.
Boyhood, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Infinity, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
Relic, 2016. Gouache on paper. 30 x 22 in. / 76.2 x 55.9 cm.
Children of a Primordial Land, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 20 in. / 61 x 50.8 cm.
Landscape of a Conversation, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 20 in. / 61 x 50.8 cm.
Mirage, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 24 in. / 50.8 x 61 cm.
The Desert, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 24 in. / 50.8 x 61 cm.
The Swimmer, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 24 in. / 50.8 x 61 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 12 x 12 in. / 30.5 x 30.5 cm.
New Day, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 40 x 30 in. / 101.6 x 76.2 cm.
White Sea, White Sky, 2016. Gouache on paper. 30 x 22 in. / 76.2 x 55.9 cm.
Nostalgia, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 16 in. / 50.8 x 40.6 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Oil on canvas. 16 x 12 in. / 40.6 x 30.5 cm.
Whispers, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.
One Day It Will All Make Sense, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
The Family, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Puddle, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Reverie, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 20 in. / 61 x 50.8 cm.
Act of Faith, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Camouflage Bird, 2016. Gouache on paper. 30 x 22 in. / 76.2 x 55.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Desolation Row, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Lust, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 12 x 16 in. / 30.5 x 40.6 cm.
Sleeping On The Grass, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
The Inner Circle, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Midnight, 2016. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 20 in. / 61 x 50.8 cm.
The Bridge, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
The Gaze, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Night Garden, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Praying In The Woods, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
The Kiss, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Here, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Bright Moment, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Blue Chamber, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
The Cycle, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Virgin Light, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
Divine Order, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm.
matthew wong (born 1984, Toronto; died 2019, Edmonton), a self-taught painter, graduated with a degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and earned an MFA in photography from the School of Creative Media of the City University of Hong Kong. Wong, who suffered from Tourette syndrom, Autism, and depression, died by suicide in 2019 at his home in Edmonton; he was thirty-five years old. Wong’s first museum exhibition, Blue View, organized by Julian Cox, which presented his blue paintings alongside Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period paintings, was recently on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. A survey exhibition, Matthew Wong: The Realm of Appearances, curated by Vivian Li, will open at the Dallas Museum of Art on October 16, 2022, and run through February 5, 2023. A forthcoming exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam will pair his work with Vincent van Gogh in 2024. His work is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Dallas Museum of Art; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
Published on the occasion of the Cheim & Read exhibition Matthew Wong: Paintings from Los Angeles 2016 May 4 — September 10, 2022 design John Cheim essay John Yau poem Matthew Wong production Stephen Truax photography Alex Yudzon & Blaine Campbell printer Graphicom isbn 978-1-944316-21-1 assistant Charlotte Dozier Artworks and poem © 2022 Matthew Wong Foundation / Artist's Rights Society (ars). cover Abyss, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 x 9 in. / 30.5 x 22.9 cm. title page Untitled, 2016. Acrylic on paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/8 in. / 31.1 x 23.2 cm.