Brent Wong
Abandoned Works 1970 - 2008
By Sophie Keyse
‘You
get out of that situation of being a painter. As a painter you can’t
see yourself.’
A
common thread that is independent of their shared creator links these
enigmatic paintings. It may not be evident on first glance but each of
these artworks has been abandoned or rejected for not reaching Brent
Wong’s level of perfection. Whether the deficiency lay in their
composition, perspective, colour relationships, content or an attack of
the elements, none have been exhibited publicly. It thus begs the
question: why is now the time to share them with the world? In 2008,
after painting for over forty years, Brent Wong decided to stop: ‘You
get out of that situation of being a painter. As a painter you can’t
see yourself.’[1] Wong began to feel that painting was not the ideal
medium to fulfil his creative aspirations. Rather, the dynamism of music
and its immediate effect on the listener was more analogous with his
focus of overwhelming one’s consciousness. This hiatus from painting
gave Wong distance and clarity from what was an emotionally invested
practice for the artist and the capacity to proceed confidently with an
exhibition of paintings that revealed his method. There is a clear
reason why the sketches and cartoons of legendary painters like the Old
Masters are still popular: it gives the viewer an insight into the
artist’s creative process and reveals how a blank piece of board can be
transformed into another world. It brings these revered beings back
down to earth by exposing their shared need to plan, contemplate,
experiment and reconsider, as well as make mistakes and start again.
Abandoned Works 1970 – 2008 divulges the process of one of New Zealand’s
most eminent painters by exposing the under-painting and preparations
of some of Wong’s most recognisable compositions and exposes the
considered designs of this renowned perfectionist.
 |
| Landscape through a Window (1974) |
A
self-taught painter, Wong’s artistic career began in the field of
drawing. After brief experimentations with watercolour and oil, he
settled on acrylic as his medium of choice. Its quick drying qualities
gave him the flexibility to easily apply successive coats of paint and
make drastic changes where necessary.[2] He has been known to spend more
than three years on a painting before he consented to its public
display, adding countless layers of acrylic paint to achieve a
jewel-like lustre to his surfaces.[3]
 |
| Ruin (1972) |
This
continuous quest of perfection is an enduring part of Wong’s creative
pursuits, potentially facilitated by his early tertiary education as a
Fine Arts student at the Wellington Polytechnic in 1963. The degree
programme’s new emphasis on graphic and industrial design refined Wong’s
technical approach, but did not satisfy Wong’s creative imagination.
Rather it was the expansive view outside his Vivian Street family home
in central Wellington that captured his attention and prompted the
frequent architectural presences and geometric patterns in earlier
paintings such as Window (1967).[4] The stretch of rooftops and myriad
of residential and office buildings seen from his window are dominant
shapes and motifs throughout his oeuvre, but these do not reflect a
fixation for nostalgia.[5] The Victorian Gothic eave brackets on the
half-demolished shell of the building in Ruin (1972) bear a resemblance
to similar Wellington buildings in Wong’s environs. One could assume
its sorry state may be a means of memoriam of a now-demolished house
from his street, but is instead an instance of Wong using his memory to
inhabit this landscape. His early works were initially composed as line
drawings of interiors and three-dimensional formations with exaggerated
perspectives, such as Structure (1967). Like a stage set, Wong then
experimented with proportions and colour.[6] In retrospect Wong has
identified the connection between these compositional puzzles and the
interconnecting puzzle-like structures of some of his floating
constructions.[7]
 |
| Floating House and
Cloud (1972) |
Many of these constructions stemmed from doodles
created during his nightshifts as a copy holder for the Dominion
newspaper and became more formalised and coherent when placed within a
composition.[8] This sketching was a means of relaxation during the
artist’s serious bouts of depression and anxiety.[9] Floating House and
Cloud (1972) features two buildings situated on a parched, empty
landscape. This is not simply an exercise in architectural drafting or a
memento of a significant event or person, but rather a disturbing
illustration of displacement and alienation.[10] The subconscious
presence of these local buildings inadvertently observed on a daily
basis manifested during Wong’s anti-depressant-fuelled automatic writing
experiments and were transformed into a symbol for the artist himself.
The way in which one of the buildings floats in the centre of the
picture plane anchored by an invisible thread to the fixed building on
the slope could be interpreted as Wong almost disconnecting from
concrete reality and descending into the dull, neurotic state of mind
induced by his medication. It is this technique, and the juxtaposition
of bizarre objects like paua shells and eggs (present in Environs
(1969)[11]) which brought about Brent Wong’s Surrealist label during
this period. Devout members of this movement, such as André Breton and
Salvador Dalì espoused the virtues of automatism in the pursuit of
accessing the ‘third eye’ and communicating the subconscious in a
tangible form.[12] However, what differentiates Wong from these artists
is his inability to completely let go and give over the particulars of
an image to his subconscious.[13] He is always conscious of what he is
doing in some way and bearing each painting’s ultimate manifestation in
mind.[14]
 |
| Hill, Layered Clouds (1986), detail |
Initially
Wong’s landscapes were purely a base upon which content could be
added. Unlike American painter Andrew Wyeth or New Zealander Grahame
Sydney, Wong’s landscapes were not painted from life or photographs and
instead were created in his studio from memory. The repetitive
geometrical patterns of these outlooks allowed Wong to plan his scenes
to the nth degree, laying the groundwork to imbue these carefully
considered compositions with content and align them with classical
painting.[15] Consequently these landscapes may be recognisable as ‘New
Zealand’ landscapes but are not to be interpreted within the realms of
New Zealand Regionalism, which was characterised by a focus on place and
local identity. Instead, the landscape is not the centre of attention
in Wong’s paintings but rather just the stage upon which action was to
be enacted.
 |
| The Wandering Land (1974) |
It
is contrary, then, that while Wong’s earlier paintings may be concerned
with self and its relationship to the universe, there is a noticeable
lack of people in these derelict spaces. Except for his 1968 painting
Theatre,[16] Wong simply removed the presence of humans from his
compositions, leaving only the remains of habitation which is relatable
but ultimately disconnected from our reality by their lack of
integration with the surrounding landscape. Their isolation from each
other imbues the picture plane with a profound sense of dislocation.[17]
This is supplemented by the portrayal of some houses as detached from
their foundations and bizarrely suspended in the air, like the
aforementioned Floating House and Cloud. They are not the only objects
Wong hangs in his skies – several works feature more peculiar characters
such as jellyfish. Snowstorm (1973) even features an oversized snail
crawling across the ridge. Paintings like The Wandering Land (1974)
have an especially extraterrestrial guise in the way the
pyramidal-shaped slice of earth tilts towards the terra firma in an
almost threatening way. It is the looming, unexplainable element of
these suspended objects which generates an eerie atmosphere.[18] Their
incongruous presence and the lack of information about what will happen
next can potentially fill the viewer with dread and uneasiness. Wong’s
disturbed inner state during their execution unconsciously permeates his
compositions; the picture surface acting like a mirror reflecting the
creator’s anxiety. Thus these landscapes are more metaphysical than
tangible: a visual autobiography that contains dreams as well as
fears.[19] Moreover, the unfinished nature of these works is apt for
their autobiographical edge – they are an incomplete story which, like life, will only conclude with death.
 |
| Snowstorm (1973) |
For a full Artist Profile on Brent Wong visit: www.ceac.org.nz and download PDF Catalogue. A printed version of the catalogue is for sale at Corban Estate Arts Centre Homestead Galleries. For information on how to buy the Limited Edition printed catalogue phone 9 838 4455 or email us at info@ceac.org.nz
FOOTNOTES
1. B Wong, interview with the author, July 18 2012
2. J Barr, Brent Wong – A Survey Exhibition (Lower Hutt: Dowse Art Gallery with the Assistance of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, 1978) unpaginated
3. “Gallery shows Wong’s work”, Fielding Herald, 20 April 2000
4. Window (Acrylic on board, 558 x 333mm, 1967)
5. N Rowe, “Brent Wong,” Art New Zealand, Winter, no. 12 (1979)
6. Caughey and J Gow, Contemporary New Zealand Art 4 (Auckland: David Bateman, 2005) 86
7. B Wong, interview with the author, July 18 2012
8. J Barr, Brent Wong – A Survey, unpaginated
9. G Wong, “Architect of alienation,” Metro, February (2004) 92
10. N Rowe, “Brent Wong,” 1979
11. Environs (Acrylic on board, 915 x 686mm, 1969)
12. J H Matthews, The Surrealist Mind (Pennsylvania: Susquehanna University Press, 1991). 155
13. Ibid.
14. ‘Brent Wong b. 1945’, Catalogue Ferner Galleries, Autumn 2007, p. 77
15. B Wong, in conversation with the author, July 18 2012
16. Theatre (Acrylic on board, 915 x 137mm, 1968)
17. D Trussell, “Exhibitions,” Art New Zealand, Winter, no. 6 (1977)
18. S Keyse, ‘Uneasy lies the head: Feelings on unease in the experience of visual art’. (Thesis: University of Auckland, 2009)
19. N Rowe, “Brent Wong,” 1979
