Lily Wong

The Lightseeker

- Anthony Cudahy

As with many artists, Covid-19 disrupted and changed Lily Wong's practice. Her figures, once rendered tiny and placed in maze-like environments, began to fill the frame, twisting and swelling into their own claustrophobic architecture. Color began to exert an intense, metaphorical force, often glowing and luminous. The works on paper grew in size, doubling and tripling in surface area, while Wong's intricate process of mark-making and building up of the paint grew in an exponential complexity. This partially portrays the power these figures and narratives possess, but the impetus is Wong herself, as deep and considerate a thinker as she is a deft creator. We met in her Greenpoint studio in early June to discuss her influences and concerns, as well as the major changes the past year, has made to her practice.

Anthony Cudahy: So I watched Happy Together last night, and actually you said you hadn’t seen that one?

Lily Wong: I need to. The classics for me are Chungking Express and