Adrian Kay Wong (b. 1991) presents encapsulated moments that display a focused lens on the intimate, familiar, and human connection. Wong explores the interactions between negative space and figure, segmenting his surfaces with shapes that are collectively representational, but independently function as abstract forms. By exacting an extreme flatness that forces ground and figure on more equal planes, Wong also levels the attention between primary subject and contextual elements. The paintings are distinctively personal through the portrayal of narratives that are often sourced from his own adolescence. By investigating these sentimentalities with a deliberate and measured simplicity, Wong attempts to glorify the ordinary and reimagine the everyday. Wong was raised in the east San Francisco Bay area and now lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.
Close to Home
Adrian Kay WongNew York, NY - Jul 08, 2021 - Aug 05, 2021
In Close to Home, Adrian Kay Wong sets the stage with intimate paintings of a potently familiar space. These paintings offer glimpses of the outside through an ever-present window, as they unfold, double, and layer upon themselves, in an exacting re-examination of our domestic surroundings and the objects within them.
Wong’s interiors are quiet spaces devoid of human inhabitants yet filled with evidence of their presence: a teacup left by the window in the morning, a wine glass at night, an orange left on the sill. Ushered by the chromatic shifts in light, Wong’s paintings transport us through a narrative and symbolic day, the clock on the wall and the persistent shift of the sun from east to west echoing time’s passing.
These paintings represent the constancy and safety that the home space has represented during a time of external volatility, and meditate on the power of internal reflection as a catalyst to enact outward transformation. Although not by choice but by necessity, we have learned through recent times that true change begins close to home.
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- Adrian Kay WongLos Angeles, CAArtist Page
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Location
Uprise Art at 264 Canal Street #4W, New York
New York, NY