Wesley Tongson's "Mountains of Heaven 1" (1998) has been featured in Asian Art Museum's article "What Does Queer Art Look Like?".
Hong Kong-based artist Wesley Tongson turned to spirituality and landscape as a way of navigating identity and mental health. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and grappling with his queerness in a less accepting era, Tongson immersed himself in the lineage of Chinese ink painting. His later works brim with a spiritual intensity that transcends tradition, offering viewers a sense of inner space.
Wesley Tongson (1957-2012, Hong Kong) moved to Toronto to study at the Ontario College of Arts in 1977 and returned to Hong Kong in 1981. Throughout the 1990s, Tongson explored ways of integrating his splash ink methods with traditional Chinese brushstroke techniques. For Tongson, transcending the conventional bounds of landscape painting was akin to transcending one’s self to attain enlightenment. Tongson also excelled in painting bamboo, plum blossoms, lotus, orchids, and pines.
In 2001, he started to experiment with finger painting. By 2009, Tongson has abandoned the brush and painted directly with his fingers and fingernails, creating emotionally communicative and powerful pieces, a hallmark of his mature period. Tongson’s finger paintings are full of sweeping, energetic lines and dots, depicting landscapes and plants. Working in large-scale forms, Tongson’s ability to maintain momentum and cohesiveness over a large-size surface is outstanding. These works from the “Spiritual Mountains” series represent the level of Tongson’s spiritual development, his path to enlightenment.
Image courtesy of The Asian Art Musuem of San Francisco
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What Does Queer Art Look Like? | Asian Art Museum
