Artist Statement
Holly Wong
I create fiber installations and painted collages on shaped aluminum that explore healing and resilience.
In my fiber practice, I became attracted to working with lightweight, transparent fabrics because they reminded me of the permeable boundary between the living and the dead. To assemble these works, I use a flat-felled seam technique and fluid machine sewing to join materials such as organza, tulle, and donated antique lace. I combine these ephemeral materials with LED strip lighting, video, sound, and diffusion film. The intent of my fiber practice is to reveal traumatic memory through the fragmentation of my materials, while also exploring the potential for healing embedded in the physical process of sewing. My collaged works 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 to explore the notion of the wound. Layers of color and the fluidity of ink mediums produce an organic overlay, enabling nature to reclaim and grow over the pain, producing a beautiful scar. Earlier bodies of work combined my initial training as a painter with my graduate education focused on installation and performance art. As a young artist, I experimented with a variety of materials to exorcise the traumatic flashbacks that I was experiencing. My approaches spanned a range of feminist actions and expressions in figuration, ultimately culminating in my practice in soft sculpture. My current work is situated in the Pattern and Decoration movement, second-wave feminism, and the California Light and Space movement, as well as the rich alternative history of quilt making and craft. I am driven to memorialize my mother, whom I lost to alcoholism and domestic violence, and to help
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