scientific diagrams and the patterns of cells, chains, ropes, feathers, or mesh. Wong derives these fragments from images of nature as well as crime scene photos, as a means of confronting, processing, and melding both pain and pleasure. Again, the process is important—these renderings are tedious, absorbing, meditative. At this juncture in Wong’s practice, the artist continues to explore psychological states and her process of healing, while her work keeps rising higher, like wisps of smoke. One of her most recent pieces, Spell Tapestry (2025), was suspended from a well of skylights in her solo exhibition Sacred Letters at ELLIO Fine Art in Houston. Made of dichroic film, drafting film, silk, cellophane, and thread, Spell Tapestry contains the variegated sections of color that one would expect to see in the stained glass of a church, but in the much lighter format of thin plastic films sewn together in multipart shapes. The overall piece, suspended with thin thread, is so light that it blows gently in the air, making its pastel and iridescent hues wink in the sunlight. For contrast, the work was shown alongside visually dense compositions worked out on paper or collaged on aluminum dibond, with names such as Elixir 5 (2025) and Internal Logic 1 (2025). The suspended piece feels all the more free by comparison, as if Wong had momentarily wriggled out of some of the tangled knots and nets and ropes and prisms that recur across those wall-hung pieces. But Wong has also kept turning to others’ stories, most recently through direct interpersonal connection and support. Motivated not only by her practice but also by her more than twenty- five-year career in health services at the University of California, San Francisco, Wong asked, How can an artist also be of service? Alongside her most recent exhibitions—including at Ogden Contemporary Arts in Utah and Maui Arts & Cultural Center in Hawaii—Wong organized programming for local communities to participate in safe space visualizations and workshops where they created their own artworks, which Wong framed as
“amulets” for protection. Having left her role at the university, Wong now has more time for both her practice and future programming, which she imagines will include both healing- focused art workshops and legal clinics where paid social workers (such as her former colleagues) and other collaborators can share information about local shelter systems and health programs. “I’m looking to be a conduit,” Wong shared in one of our conversations. It was a practical note, but also a fitting metaphor. A conduit can refer to a natural channel that carries water, perhaps the result of an overflow in one area that nevertheless sustains life or fosters growth elsewhere. Or it can refer to a flexible but durable metal tube fabricated to contain and protect electrical wires that convey power from one place to another. It is silent but not inert; it is fitted to its environment but contains something that was missing; you can imagine it crackling or churning as energy or fluid passes through. It is always on its way.
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Mira Dayal
Following the Lines
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