Matthew Wong's Posthumous Athens Exhibition Features Preparatory Gouaches

ARCH in Athens presents 'Matthew Wong: Postcards,' an exhibition of the artist's 2019 preparatory gouaches and watercolors on paper, running from September 10 to December 11, 2020. Wong died by suicide in October 2019 at age 35, shortly after completing these works intended for a planned Athens residency. The show includes pieces like Big Wave Bay, Pink Dawn, Moon Rise, The Gloaming, and A Voyage on the North Sea, displayed in a ring around the nonprofit gallery space near Greece's National Gardens. His stylized, naïve scenes depict women gazing at the sea, silhouettes against sunsets, and deserted beaches, evoking feelings of abandonment and dissolving landscapes. Technical approaches feature counterintuitive Fauvist color choices and pointillist methods, with watercolor soak creating pantheistic effects where forms bleed into surroundings. Art historical references range from Edvard Munch's oppressive atmospheres to Hokusai's Mount Fuji, Henri Rousseau, and André Derain. The exhibition explores themes of tranquility, entrapment, and the Buddhist concept of sunyata through compositions that flatten perspective and dissolve pictorial depth.