Current
WONG SZE WAI
b. 1990, Hong Kong
Wong Sze Wai was born and based in Hong Kong. She graduated from The Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Master of Fine Arts in 2020, and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2013.
Wong Sze Wai’s artworks focus on the relationship between memory and imagination. They highlight the loss of memories and represent the process of recollection in a way of inscription and erasure, which is also known as palimpsest. The way she paints was first inspired by the ancient Chinese murals in Dunhuang Cave and the murals from the Medieval time in Eastern Europe before developing into a representation of how memory and history being written and erased. Apart from exploring ancient paintings, techniques like multi-layering and repeated washout have grown to become her own painting method since they create a sense of depth and show traces of time passing. As for the subject matter, she is fascinated by ruin for its metaphorical representation of lost and concealed memories. In her recent works, ruin has been regarded as a body of memory and history as traces of human activities and changing times fill such abandoned places. From her experience of visiting ruins, wondering about ruins is much alike recalling memories because people imagine the history of ruins, just like we imagine our own memories.
