Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
LandEscape meets
Tsz Mei Wong
An interview by Katherine Williams , curator and Josh Ryder , curator landescape @ europe . com
Artist Wong Tszmei ' s work expresses the tradition value emphasizing space and volume in the configuration and adapting the linear structure of traditional expression . Her works unveil the elusive Ariadne ' s thread that link Tradition and Contemporariness , challenging the viewers ' cultural substratum to induce them to elaborate personal associations , offering them a multilayered aesthetic experience . Her paintings oscillate between control and chaos to capture a new perspective on the world . One of the most impressive aspects of Tszmei ' s work is the way it accomplishes a successful attempt to synthesize tradition with visual experience and Western art . We are very pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production .
Hello Wong and welcome to LandEscape : before starting to elaborate about your artistic production would you like to tell us something about your background ? You have a solid background and you completed Master of Arts on the art history of antiquitiesat Tsinghua University of China . How do these experience influence your evolution as an artist ? And in particular , how does your cultural substratum dued to your inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general ?
I was born in 1960 in H . K ., I seemed to possess the talent for painting since childhood . My playmates adored my sketches and the adults also praised my drawings . I could not afford to pay the tuition , so until I was enrolled in a college of education , that I could take the course of western painting and Chinese painting with the grant and loan offering by government . I also earned my living expenses by teaching children to paint . From that time onward , I have been teaching people to paint until now . I really benefited from teaching people painting , both Western and Chinese painting , from children to adult , for various ways to make others to accomplish one ’ s work of art to be conceived , therefore researches had to refer to all essential aspects of a subject matter , then comprehension deepened .
The acquaintance with Chinese and Western art fulfills my attempts to synthesize the East and West . However , the straddling of cultures is not a simple task , for there must be some give and take to establish a lively imagery , otherwise an work of art would be reduced to the agglomeration of elements of both culture with empty concepts ; or it is just the formalistic play with trite visual images just to convey some superficial notions of a culture . But I have in my blood an uneasy need for change , which is the constant evolution of perpetual search for progress in my métier . I am impelled by a desire of escaping the confines of tradition and the finality of a kind of visual form . Years of obstinate plodding along the same path of painting dotted with difficulties and successes , with anxious self-questioning and uncertainty , I am still able to carry my purpose . Moreover , I love oil paintings . The impressionistic oil