"Meanwhile..." (2018) portrays an interior scene where the viewer is given a glimpse of the night sky through a large window covered by venetian blinds. The title possibly alludes to transitioning between two places. The night sky outside reveals an array of stars and a full moon visible through the slats. In the lower right corner of the painting, a mug-like vessel holds a solitary flower with vivid, flame-shaped, red petals, seemingly reaching towards the moon, reminiscent of how plants bend towards the sun. Painted on the vessel is a stick figure beneath some leaves, possibly symbolizing humanity's yearning to capture and hold nature within their own structures.

Published by the Art Gallery of Ontario in association with the Matthew Wong Foundation. Blue View was Wong’s first museum exhibition, and these prints were authorised by the Matthew Wong Foundation.

Produced in connection with the landmark 2021 exhibition, this is an authorised Matthew Wong publication with direct provenance to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

There is something particularly appropriate about the way these prints came into the world.

Matthew Wong was a largely self taught artist whose career developed outside many of the traditional routes into the art world. He shared his work online, formed relationships with other artists through social media and developed his practice through looking, learning and an intuitive process of discovery.

The prints published in association with Blue View were not presented as conventional numbered fine art editions. No edition number was printed on the works and no total production quantity was published.

We cannot know whether Wong himself would have chosen to produce them in this way. Yet there is an interesting continuity between an artist whose work first travelled so freely through images and conversations, and these authorised museum publications, which allowed his extraordinary images to travel beyond the walls of his first museum exhibition.

Today that accessibility has acquired an unexpected consequence. The prints are no longer readily available from their original institutional source and examples appear very infrequently on the secondary market. What began as an accessible way of encountering Wong’s work has itself become scarce.

Provenance:

Art Gallery of Ontario

MODO, Cambridge

This work is authorised by the Matthew Wong foundation.