See Work From the Late Art Star Matthew Wong’s First Museum Show, Dedicated to His Mesmerizing Blue Paintings
Matthew Wong was a voracious painter. Just after trying his hand at pictures, poetry, and even Chinese scroll painting, the young artist commenced operating with oil paint in 2013. Fully self-taught, he designed extra than 1,000 works before his dying in 2019, at the age of 35.
At the time of Wong’s death, he was building a formidable profile in the art environment, but had by no means been the subject of a museum exhibition. That modifications with “Blue View” at the Art Gallery of Ontario in the artist’s indigenous Canada. The present (on by means of April 18, 2022) offers 40 of the about 60 performs in Wong’s “Blue Collection,” which the artist labored on from 2017 until finally his death.
The illustrations or photos are a symphony of indigo, turquoise, azure, and inky-black blues, all depicting quiet scenes that the artist reported ended up gleaned from a excursion he took with his mother to Sicily. There are extensive winding roadways and intimate glimpses into darkened rooms. The compositions bring to mind Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies—melancholy but also serene.
Like the versions of Satie’s minimalist piano pieces, Wong’s shots are variants on a theme. The artist at the time said they are meant to “activate nostalgia, each individual and collective.” The existence of lone people, practically always without having determining functions and rendered in blurred outline, underscores this impact.
In an essay for the show’s catalogue, previous Guggenheim curator Nancy Spector describes Wong’s operate as “Fauvist at coronary heart with an overlay of pointillist patterning.”
His paintings, she writes, “are amazing for the brilliance of their palettes.” Even when defined by their blueness, they regulate to include just about every shade and are punctuated at situations with lilac, silvery white, vermillion, and peach.
Although Wong’s do the job has drawn comparisons to artists as various as Edouard Vuillard and Yayoi Kusama, he was capable to build a mood in paint that was fully his personal.
See far more pictures from “Matthew Wong: Blue Watch,” below. “Matthew Wong: Blue Perspective” is on watch at the Art Gallery of Ontario through April 18, 2022.
Matthew Wong, Meanwhile… (2018).© 2019 Matthew Wong Foundation/Artists Rights Modern society (ARS) New York. Picture courtesy of Karma, New York.
Matthew Wong, A Aspiration (2019).© 2019 Matthew Wong Basis/Artists Rights Modern society (ARS) New York. Impression courtesy of Karma, New York.
Matthew Wong, Autumn Nocturne (2018).© 2019 Matthew Wong Basis/Artists Legal rights Modern society (ARS) New York. Picture courtesy of Karma, New York.
Matthew Wong, Blue Night time (2018). © 2019 Matthew Wong Foundation/Artists Rights Culture (ARS) New York. Impression courtesy of Karma, New York.
Matthew Wong, Untitled (2018). © 2019 Matthew Wong Basis/Artists Rights Modern society (ARS) New York. Image courtesy of Karma, New York.
Matthew Wong, Starry Night time (2019). © 2019 Matthew Wong Basis/Artists Rights Modern society (ARS) New York. Graphic courtesy of Karma, New York.
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