""Precipice Don't lose your footing The wall might be a floor" I type this list into my Notes app as I visit Lily Wong's studio. In her work, she plays with the tenses and outlines of narrative. There is a flexibility here. A reliable narrator is not to be found. The older you get, the less sure you are of your fixed personhood. How open can you leave a story?"
"One piece in particular, Moonflower, contends with all of this. The main figure is not simply mirrored but divided into three. Scale is thrown into question by the small (?) figure in the distance, holding the stem of a giant (?) flower, the bloom of which enters the room along with the main figure. Her foot is entangled in another stem, and she seems to be taking a step forward without solid grounding."
"Lily's studio is neat. Large sheets of paper are pinned to the walls, methodically layered with thin strokes of acrylic paint over weeks and months. Remnants of wiping off her brush or testing a color/mark surround the pieces like Seurat frames. These colors have become more complex than previous works. Much more interconnected, surprising colors often reflect onto other portions of the paintings."
Lily Wong's work destabilizes stable narrative by fragmenting figures, shifting tenses, and interrogating fixed personhood. Moonflower divides a protagonist into three figures and unsettles scale with a distant small figure holding a giant flower whose bloom intrudes into the interior space. Figures appear entangled and poised without solid grounding. The studio is neat, with layered acrylic marks, test wipes, and methodical surfaces. Color relationships have grown more complex and reciprocal. Visual references to Yoshitoshi, George Tooker, Bosch, Patty Chang, and Louise Bourgeois appear alongside the artist's own printed ephemera and prior works, which are incorporated into new paintings.
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