Explorer of the night
For talented artist Lisa Wong, it is in the obscurity of the night that magic happens, writes Intan Maizura Ahmad Kamal
“Myrecentworkreflects a different perspective of my own garden, inspired heavily by my nighttime walks with my dog. It’s within that enclosed, personal space that I draw the ideas of magic realism from the ordinary…” the voice begins, tone dreamy.
It continues, this time more animatedly. “… From the occasional swooping of a bat, to the cry of cicadas chorusing in the abyss of the dark. In the obscurity of the night, the magic happens, even if it does take place in such familiar surroundings.
A pause, and artist Lisa Wong Sook Kuan smiles, having described the premise for her upcoming art showcase, an online exhibition brought by The Art People Gallery (TAPG), a gallery founded in 2015 to bring the best of Malaysia’s fine art in focus and in reach of art lovers at home and abroad.
The talented illustrator, currently residing in the San Francisco Bay area in the United States, elaborates that her latest body of work, Nighttime Spells, is heavily inspired by her garden.
“I tend to take my dog out every night, and I always find myself soaking in the atmosphere when I'm out in the yard. The voluminous dark of the night, I find, translates wonderfully onto the canvas.”
Lisa, whose favourite piece from this latest collection is Night Magic, a scene from one of her favourite portions of her garden, began this journey into the unknown with the painting, View from My
Garden, an almost multiple-perspective view into her own literal backyard.
She soon found herself focusing on certain patterns in the foliage in her peripheral, often subconsciously committing them to memory.
With these fragments lodged firmly into her mind, the artist, who attended the California College of the Arts for her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration, decided to create her own mythical version of an existing space.
Elaborating, Lisa points out: “The same can be said of Small
Ornament, which is an overlapping of a heighted version of my garden and a small wooden ornament I own, now made an explorer of the night. Through this, the mundane and the magic are merged on the canvas as one.”
Growing up in Malaysia, muses Lisa, made it incredibly easy to take the tropical landscape for granted.
In her youth, she saw it as bothersome and humid. “But little by little, the patches of overgrown jungle was razed down to red mud, and then built up to skyscrapers. The mini forests along the highways I passed as a child were thinned out and began to take on an almost sickly demeanour,” she recalls, solemnly.
However, when she returned home, she’d find herself sitting in the garden; the sunlight sharpening the blades of grass, and dragonflies adding splashes of red to the overwhelming green.
“It was respite from whatever the day had brought on. But for whatever reason, when the sun had set, it seemed as if there was added enigma to it,” says Lisa, her voice trailing off in awe.
Art in the time of MCO
With the Covid-19 pandemic still menacing the world, art, just like many other things, have sought refuge online.
Online viewing rooms have become the “new normal” and artists have had to find creative ways to get their work out to the public.
And this is what Lisa, a big fan of the canvas of American-Taiwanese visual artist James Jean; Japanese painter Makiko Kudo; Japanese painter and manga artist Takato Yamamoto; and artist Sean Barber, has been doing too.
“So far, I've been focusing on displaying my art online as the pandemic has taken away the opportunity to appreciate art in person,” she says, before adding: “Personally, I’m used to staying in as I work from home, but I think it's natural to have anxieties about the situation and the art scene, not only locally but globally.”
It’s especially during trying times such as this that she values art all the more, confides Lisa.
“Under government-ordained closures, people are more likely to turn to movies, games, and social media; all of which mean that the consumption of art and design is at an all-time high. In a sense, it’s clear to me that as a species, we need art for survival. Personally, this time period has given me the space to reflect on what I can create.”
Of mess, Doodles and paintings
Born and raised in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, Lisa is the middle sibling of three sisters. The eldest is a writer, and the youngest, a scientist.
Fondly, she recollects: “As kids, we tended to make up stories as we went along, each story and character evolving to something wilder as it progressed. We were taken out of the local school system in primary school and moved into a homeschooling centre. I was essentially in selfstudy at the centre up until I was about 15.”
As a result, Lisa remembers having little access to art classes or materials.
All her drawings she’d do on the small blank areas of her textbooks. It wasn't until she was moved back into a proper education system that she was taught how to paint and mix colours properly by her high school art teacher, Mrs. Alford.
“To this day, I still credit her for teaching me to think more experimentally in my art,” adds Lisa, softly
Asked whether she can still remember the first piece of art that she did which she’s particularly proud of, Lisa, who loves to cook and bake in her free time, replies: “I think there's no such thing as a painter's first work. As artists, we leave a trail of mess, doodles, and paintings along the way. As Mrs Alford once told me, "Never get precious about your work".”
Tracing her beginnings in art, Lisa,
whose last exhibition before the Movement Control Order (MCO) was through Balai Seni Negara at their Matic space, shares that she was inspired to take up painting full time when she discovered that she much preferred using traditional mediums to any Adobe application.
Smiling, she concedes: “I also, ashamedly so, wasn't a particularly great graphic designer. But painting gave me an opportunity to evolve into so many different ways.
“In my earliest works as a professional painter, my work was mostly in monochrome and almost macabre; but over time it has evolved so much I can't say I truly have one ‘style’ of art.”
Working with TAPG has also been a blessing as they’ve exhibited her work
from its earliest stages till now.
Says Lisa: “Through TAPG, I've had the opportunity to exhibit in Malaysia's Art Expo and Hong Kong's Affordable Art Fair. I've also recently been added on Artsy's list of artists.”
Sharing one of her early memories of her journey, Lisa recalls her experience in Hong Kong at the Affordable Art Fair.
“I remember clearly trying to trudge up five floors of the Hong Kong Convention Centre, with six torso-sized paintings in tow with fellow artist Ben Chong, searching hard for the exhibition hall the Affordable Art Fair had been allocated,” begins Lisa, chuckling.
Continuing, she adds: “We’d just got off the plane a few hours earlier and it was time to set up our booth. After 30 minutes of what I’d classify as a workout in weights, we finally arrived at the correct hall.
“Straightaway, it was down to business — hammering, curating, and searching for a viable source of drinking water. This is what I’ve become accustomed to over the span of time I’d been displaying my work!”
Voice low, Lisa, who confesses that a lot of her best work are the result of her propensity for being spontaneous in her decision-making, muses: “Often, I look back on these experiences I’ve accumulated and think about how fortunate I’ve been, a young Malaysian female artist, to have experienced the privilege of displaying my work internationally.”
Concluding, she adds emphatically: “But more importantly, what I want is for more focus to be placed on the talented women who contribute to the Malaysian creative industry, and for our art to receive the adulation that it deserves.”