Lam Wong: Ghosts from Underground Love

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Lam Wong, "Ghosts from Underground Love," 2022

Lam Wong: Ghosts from Underground Love

Curator: Steven Dragonn

Opening Reception: September 10, 12-6pm

Lam Wong’s new solo exhibition since spring 2020 features series of all young female portrait paintings that Wong has started working on during his Griffin Art Projects residency in summer 2019. His new works depict powerful emotions of bravery, passion, love, desire, fear and hope of young women concealed in the underground network of secret lover letters during their prison times under authoritarian surveillance, Institutional oppression and unjustified punishments.

Focusing on his concern of love and suffering, two fundamental conditions of human existence, Wong is again turning his attention to investigate the construct of emotion and trauma. Inspired by and based on Laura Nys’ research on Emotion Refuge and love letters of juvenile delinquents during early 20th century in Europe. These are portraits of young lost ghosts, tortured by love, scarred and burned, undimmed by courage, forgotten… eternally immortalized now.

Lam Wong wishes to thank Dr. Laura Nys, Dr. Luc Beaudoin, Mei Wong, Giulia Cecchi, Steven Dragonn, Lisa Baldissera, Jade Chow, Kokopelli Salon & Spa, Griffin Art Projects, B.C. Artscape and Canada Council for the Arts for their generous supports and assistance with this exhibition project.

About the artist

Lam Wong is a visual artist and curator who immigrated from Hong Kong to Canada during the 1980s and studied design, art history and painting in Alberta and British Columbia. Wong works with painting, installation and performance to engage with themes such as the perception of reality, the role of art and the relationship between time, memory and space. He sees artmaking as an ongoing spiritual practice and his work draws upon his knowledge of Western art history and his interest in Taoism and Buddhism. Wong’s creative approach is often concerned with blending Eastern philosophies and challenging the notion of painting.

Lam Wong has been based in Vancouver since 1998. He has recently exhibited his work and performed at Campbell River Art Gallery, Canton-Sardine, Centre A, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Griffin Art Projects, Unit 17 and Vancouver Art Gallery.