Wong sees color as a mechanism of infinite variety with which to capture the complexities of daily life.  Layering texture and paint in an effort to hide one world from the other, she finds that the subterfuge at the intersection of pain and privilege allows art making to become a symbol of redemption.  Her collectors see something of themselves and their own search for meaning in her work.  According to Wong, "All of nature is alternatively destined either for destruction or for a dance, and I want to catch a moment in that process."

I am an abstract expressionist painter, influenced by the New York painters of the 50's and 60's, especially Franz Kline. I get most of my ideas from the real world where I may see something that interests me and looks like it would make a good painting. I try to remember it, or make a quick sketch if I can. Then I make it into a design that will fit my style. Sometimes it comes out like I imagined it, and sometimes it comes out quite differently.

I'm showing in SOMA with Gwen Fuller and Mark Toal. 

My inspiration comes from learning and studying about the way of life in different parts of the world as well as local. Interacting with new and foreign environments fascinates me. My work draws from the many faces, lands, art, and architecture, which I encounter while traveling.

One theme I like to focus on includes the juxtaposing qualities of civilization and nature, sometimes clashing and sometimes in harmony. Another theme in my work is depicting the struggle between preservation and deterioration of cultures and land. The subjects in my work are landscapes, cityscapes, and portraits derived from scenes from my memory and photograph. It excites me to observe the color schemes that nature has brought forth and also to play with this using my imagination. The output is a combination of my experience, thoughts, understanding, as well as experimentation.

I believe art is wonderful platform to promote harmony because it teaches people respect and understanding for each other and our surroundings. I feel lucky and thankful to have the opportunity of experiencing life as an artist. This artistic exploration continues to help me understand who I am.

I am showing in SOMA with photographer, Mark Toal and abstract painter, Rick Fisher:

My limited-edition, signed, photographic and mixed-media images, are printed on paper or aluminum, and fall into two categories:

First, my botanical series, combines my love of nature with my passion for music. 

Second, my painterly series, presents fine-art prints of my original acrylic and mixed-media abstracts.

I have just returned from two years in Paris and I am opening up my studio for the first time in San Francisco to show some of my acrylic paintings from Paris and my charcoal drawings from San Francisco. This show is going to focus primarily on faces, but I'll be showing some figures as well.  While in Paris, I sketched daily on the metro, sneaking glances at passengers and then returned to my studio to paint my on large canvases. I 'sketched' live models using acrylic paints on paper during short poses at La Grande Chaumiere in Paris. I drew live models  in charcoal at the 23rd Street Studio in San Francisco. I spent many years drawing, but kept  my work very private. This is the first time of most  of these drawings will be shown to the public. 

Seeing a bit of nature like an odd seed pod or a bright autumn leaf, my impulse is to pick it up and bring it home so I can keep it and study it.  This means my room gets full of crumbly little bits of dusty brown things that aren't at all what first caught my eye, so I try to capture an image of the flower bud or acorn to keep forever, making a portrait of it before it fades away. 

I paint in watercolors, but in an unusual method where transparent colors are layered atop one another to get a realistic effect.  In a typical painting, there may be two to six layers of paint, with the upper layers applied in a "dry" manner, usually using pretty damned small brushes.  It can take a long time to finish a painting; luckily my subjects are mostly on the small side and very good at sitting still.

Original Art Made of Hand Drawn Lines

LineScaping is a series of original paintings and drawings created by lines. It features a minimalist abstraction with a distinctive style. All lines are drawn freehand one by one, unlike one may suspect it computer assisted.

Abstract Art

What do you see in abstract art? There's no incorrect answer to what you should see in abstract art. Use imagination. Make up your own story and be convinced with it. Your story is the subjective truth you live with. Ultimately, it's not only about abstract art, but also everything in life is about how you view things.

“I enjoy blending narrative and portraiture into my paintings and prints. Thematically, my works invoke varying degrees of emotions such as tension, desire, restlessness, self-doubt and vulnerability.  The works explore how one may approach and process these learned insecurities.  Visually, my style is influenced by the German Expressionists and the American Social Realists.”

Catherine Small studied visual art, art history and design at The University of Texas at Austin and Sam Houston State University where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts, graduating with honors.  After a career in graphic design, and on the same day she signed the last check to her daughter’s private college in 2003, Catherine began working full time as an artist concentrating on painting and printmaking.

Her work has been exhibited and collected nationally and internationally.

 To be alive is to move ~   As a professional Dancer, I was trained to become acutely aware of the movement of my body from the smallest detail - the arc of my arm-to the larger pattern made on stage by the choreography.  More important than mastering the physical movement, was revealing the path of my mind,heart and spirit during the dance. My ultimate goal was to move from being an individual dancer to embodying the essence of the DANCE. My Artwork is an exploration of that journey.