Holly Wong
Biography
Holly Wong (b. 1971, North Miami Beach, FL) creates fiber and drawing-based installations and collaged paintings that explore healing and resilience. She was educated at the San Francisco Art Institute where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts. Holly has participated in over 100 exhibitions including group shows at the de Young Museum, the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum. A Presidential Scholar in the Arts, she has received grants from the California Arts Council (Established Artist category), the Puffin Foundation, the George Sugarman Foundation, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. Holly lives and works in San Francisco.
Artist Statement
I make painted collages on aluminum, in addition to fiber and drawing-based installations that range in size from three feet high to room size immersive environments, exploring healing and resilience.
My collaged works on shaped aluminum are layered drawings and paintings that form densely nested worlds of pattern. I start initially with drawing, often basing my images on medical or crime scene photography. The images explore the notion of the wound but then the layering of color and the fluidness of the ink mediums produce an organic overlay. I utilize this layering as a way of nature reclaiming and growing over the pain, producing a beautiful scar.
My work is situated in the work of the Pattern and Decoration movement, second wave feminist artists, the California Light and Space movement, and the rich alternative history of quilt making, and craft. In my work, I am driven to memorialize my mother whom I lost to alcoholism and domestic violence, and to help provide a healing space for people who face violence without recourse. I draw and sew as a journey towards wholeness, both for myself and for my mother’s memory. My work seeks to reclaim the female body and bear witness to the spirit by emphasizing the vibrancy of pattern and flow. Creating works of beauty in brokenness is my highest form of resistance.
Click on the link below to download Holly's CV.