Matthew Wong sees Van Gogh as a kindred spirit. He admires Van Gogh for his artistic qualities, and their lives also show many similarities.
Kindred spirits
For Wong and Van Gogh, their creative calling is both a quest and a liberation. Just like Van Gogh, Matthew Wong walks a number of paths before finding his feet as a painter of colourful landscapes.
How it began
The Chinese-Canadian Matthew Wong is born in Canada. He emigrates with his parents to Hong Kong as a child, where they live for eight years, before returning to Canada due to the medical care that Wong requires for his autism. Wong obtains his Bachelor’s in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Michigan (USA) at the age of 23. In the same year, he moves back to Hong Kong, where his interest in photography leads to his first introduction to art.
Living for art
Wong’s interest in the visual arts starts to expand beyond photography during an internship at the Hong Kong Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011. He is studying photography in Hong Kong at the time, but after completing his studies in 2012, he increasingly focuses on drawing and painting.
Wong finds his own studio and starts experimenting with ink drawings inspired by the Chinese tradition, and later also makes paintings using watercolours and oils. Wong works obsessively, and makes up to five paintings in a single day. His style develops rapidly. In 2014, he has his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. Despite his initial success, in 2016, he decides to leave China. Wong hopes that there will be more opportunities for him as an artist in the US. And that turns out to be the case…