“My art is symbolic of this country’s multiple canons. My work is significant because it inserts little-known chronicles into the cultural landscape. Influenced by the contemporary artists, Faith Ringgold, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Joseph Cornell, I make art that speaks of personal, family, community, cultural, and historical stories. To retrieve these narratives I interview people that I find heroic in order to explore disquieting matters that transform me and viewers to a place of healing, connecting, and understanding. I use cloth rice sacks, sequins, beads, old suitcases, scanned photographs, magazine text, Chinese funeral paper, flags of the United States, needle, and thread to create my mixed-media installations. In acknowledgement of my identity as an American of Chinese descent I frequently use Chinese and English text in my work. ”
Official Site for Flo Oy Wong:
http://www.flo-oy-wongartist.com/index.html
Flo Oy Wong: Storyteller and Cultural Worker
“I love hearing the stories, so that they can feed my soul; so that I can grow.”
– Flo Oy Wong, Norfolk, Virginia, September 2000.
Stephen Carpenter, II
Associate Professor of Art Education Virginia Commonwealth University, Oct. 2003 (professor of art education and professor in charge of the Art Education Program at Penn State)
“As both artist and storyteller, Flo Oy Wong is an inspirational teacher who understands the importance of learning from lived experiences, whether they are her own of those of others. “Being an artist teaches me to see. When I go to artist workshops and/or residencies I share that ‘seeing.’ I learned this sharing from my father who said to me years ago, ‘U loy, u wohng,’ and ‘mmm hoong sill.’ The first means that there is “give and take” and the latter means ‘we should never go anywhere empty-handed.’” ( Flo Oy Wong, personal communication, July 2001.)
http://www.flo-oy-wongartist.com/rev_essays/carpenter.html
SomArts Gallery: Flo Oy Wong – 70/30.
http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/052208.html
Suitcase Series:
“Using items arranged in suitcases actually from the internment, she told the stories of six individuals who had lived in the camps. While being interviewed, one of the individuals admitted, “I never intended to revisit these memories, and here you are asking these questions!” And the relief that it brought this man to unburden himself of his long-held story, and others like him, made the laborious exhibition all the more special to Mrs. Wong. In addition to this chapter of Japanese-American history, Mrs. Wong has explored Chinese-American and African-American contributions to American culture. Truly a cultural historian, her works are known for capturing the insider’s perspective of a group at a given time.” (Adam Gallagher, 2011)
http://www.creativeaging.org/programs-people/stories/flo-oy-wong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYMWVH2Z3ZQ
KQED Spark – Flo Oy Wong
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC8u56rVTDE
Flo Oy Wong “made in use” Paul Fong, Bong Slin”
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