Matthew Wong was one of the greatest artists of my generation. He was the Van Gogh of our century, who took his own life after a prolific career of inventive impressionism, far too young to have left us to so soon; a Mozart of contemporary art. I could get lost in his paintings, like the solitary wanderer who inhabits them, recording the scenes of a never-ending dream, sifting through the cavity of consciousness.
In "See You on the Other Side" I am teetering on a white plain of emptiness, the fruits of the earth anchoring me to the source, a long billowing face of a mountain uplifting the medium, stretching the cosmic zirconium to infinite heights, where the soul becomes checkered in bejeweled constellations. Severed from the home at its base, I'm forbidden to cross that expanse of transparency, where that which divides us from a higher function medicates my senses in anesthesia, blinding me to the beautyscapes beyond.
In the blue "Starry Night" I am seduced by a deep sleep kingdom of fragmented firmament, where mountains float on the seedy tiles of metro-light, buoyed by fans that sail through a disembodied cavern of sunken stars, the orderly village in defiance of the surreal landscape.
Wong was on the cusp of fame when he took his life. His auctions reportedly sell in the millions of USD. The archetype of the tortured artist lives on, who suffers diligently to create their masterpieces, disappearing right as their moment comes. A sad fate can still be a happy one.
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