Serenity Gets the Blues in Matthew Wong’s First Solo Exhibition
By Laine Capshaw
Wong,Starry Night, 2019, oil on canvas, 152 × 178 cm. Karma, New York
This past August, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) welcomed the first-ever solo museum exhibition of Chinese-Canadian painter Matthew Wong. Matthew Wong: Blue View features over forty works by the artist painted between 2017 and 2019 alongside selected poems and photographs. A self-taught painter, Wong garnered stellar reception with an exhibition at the Hong Kong Visual Arts Center in 2015, immediately launching his career in fine artmaking. His dream-like canvases, some inverted ethereal landscapes and others imagined still lifes, have led critics to recall les nabis and Milton Avery when viewing his work. After his tragic passing at the too-young age of 35 in 2019, Blue View holds special importance as a necessary retrospective of the artist. His blue series is believed to be the most pertinent collection of works that showcase the artist’s sentimentality and formal craft. Playing with equal parts melancholy and wonderment, Wong’s memory is not lost in this blue-hued exhibition.
Wong, Blue Night, 2018, oil on canvas. 152 × 122 cm. Karma, New York
Blue Night painted in 2018 is an excellent example of the way Wong simultaneously offers sensibility, draftsmanship and direct art historical references to his canvases. A melancholic interior is coupled with a Fauvist outside view, providing a glimpse of real time and place through the window of an imaginary blue room. Inside the fictional is attainable, with a single flower standing up on its own, while the outdoors abides by the strictures of nature.
The feeling of isolation evoked in Blue Night is a common motif in this series by Wong, continued in A Dream painted one year later. The inverted landscape places the viewer on the side of a curved path, looking to the horizon of an indeterminable distant scene. Again, yellow is paired with blue here, with sublime natural affectations of Bonnard’s wild trees at play. The viewer easily becomes the introspective wanderer in the painting, heading towards a dreamt sunset.
Wong, A Dream, 2019, oil on canvas. 178 × 203 cm. Karma, New York
Having painted over one thousand canvases, with seminal exhibitions around the world at some of the most high-brow museums and with works selling for millions (his 2018 Coming of Age selling at Christie’s this past December for three times its estimate bid at $1.6 million), it goes without saying that Wong is a figurehead in the contemporary art of our lifetime. This being considered, Chadd Scott for Forbes warns against the commodification of the artist especially after his untimely death. Equally as dangerous are mythic summaries of his life and work. Despite struggles with mental health and disability, Wong stands as a clear example of perseverance and resilience, independent of his economic successes in the art market or established landslide exhibitions. AGO’s Blue View exhibition functions as an active restoration of the humanity of the artist himself, dedicated to the realization of the painter no longer detached by the distance between hand, paintbrush and canvas. The exhibition at AGO will run until the 18th of April and is available to view with a pre-booked time slot. The AGO is also hosting a talk on Wong’s work on Tuesday, the first of March; more details can be found on their website.
Notes
https://ago.ca/exhibitions/matthew-wong-blue-view
https://karmakarma.org/artists/matthew-wong/bio/
Genzlinger, Neil. “Matthew Wong, Painter on Cusp of Fame, Dies at 35.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/obituaries/matthew-wong-dead.html
Scott, Chadd. “Matthew Wong: Blue View at Art Gallery Of Ontario.” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chaddscott/2021/12/12/matthew-wong-blue-view-at-art-gallery-of-ontario/?sh=44e1958d2772
Goldstein, Caroline. “In Pictures: See Work From the Late Art Star Matthew Wong’s First Museum Show, Dedicated to His Mesmerizing Blue Paintings.” Artnet, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/in-pictures-matthew-wong-at-ago-2065259