Wong's 'Impetus I' (oil and enamel on aluminium sheet, 2016-2017). Photo: Richard Koh Fine Art
All Wong Perng Fey could do was paint. He recalls this vividly. When the wind howled and beat relentlessly against the metal doors of his studio in China, making them rattle, all he could do was wrap himself tighter in his cheap wool jacket purchased from the local market, and paint.
“The others next door, in the next courtyard and the next compound, might very well be doing the same. Perhaps they were dipping their brushes into the oil, or pressing their hands into moulding clay sculptures, or perhaps shaping metal or wood for their installations. We knew what we were here to do, or maybe we did not. But the association of hundreds of other artists within the same place, pursuing the same path, gave everyone a sense of belonging. It made the lonesome life of surviving the harsh Beijing weather less so,” recalls Wong, 43.
