Wingla Wong – [↖] Untitled (2015) ; [↗] Untitled (2015) ; [↙ ] Untitled (2015); [↘] Untitled (2015)
Usually when I reference other photographers/image makers, the implication is two-fold:
- Art does not come about ex post nihilo, from a void; work is understood–or, misunderstood (you can’t have the possibility of comprehension without the equal and opposite possibility of confusion)–as a result of context, i.e. how the work is displayed (captions, artist’s statement(s), etc.); also: historical (art and other) positioning and theoretical conscription/rejection.
- Typically, I’m pointing to artists who was–in effect–the progenitor.
Things are a bit different here.
Wong has clearly drawn extensive inspiration from the catalogs of Akif Hakan Celebi (the fuss and bustle of post industrial Hong Kong, confrontational interrogations between notions of public vs. private), Yung Ching Lin (oneiric surrealism wed with a sublime perversity) and Ren Hang (the beauty of bleak sky lines in Asiatic megalopolises.)
And although she lacks the technical acumen of these artist’s (she never manages to juggle super saturated colors with anywhere near the aplomb of Celebi; tonally her work not only lacks the winking coyness of Lin, it very much heads in quite the opposite direction–alighting closer to symbolic coding than the fevered logic of a Jungian sex nightmare; and there’s a celebratory awe to Wong’s work that is absent from Hang’s sacred cow slaying provocations), she does create work that has some uncanny observations about feminine desire and physical embodiment.
Also, it’s interesting to me that all these easy influences that I’ve named use affect to concerted effect; whereas Wong adopts the effect in hopes that you presume an affectation, allowing her to hide in plain site.
It’s all rather clever and for that reason, I’m incredibly fond of her work.
Acetylene Eyes 