Kitty Ng in her studio (image courtesy of the artist)
From August 22 to October 22, 2023, WOAW Gallery Wan Chai will be presenting the duo-solo exhibition “The Record, The Double, And The Singular,” curating a dialogue between the works of contemporary artists Kitty Ng and Taedong Lee. The works of both artists originate from their personal archive of photographs. Rather than simply painting what can be observed, the images serve as a starting point for them to express their changing emotions and perspectives, transforming nostalgic scenes into a form of narrative visual imagery.
“Let's do an experiment,” said Ng.
“Think of a memory of when you were younger. Think of how you felt. Now imagine you are telling me this story. What details are you including and leaving out? Now, how do you feel telling the story?”
Kitty Ng, And I Was Like, HUH?, 2022
To Ng, memories are subjective, shaped by individual perception and personal emotions. When we recall our experiences to an audience, we tend to focus on specific details and maybe even choose to omit certain elements. Maybe the way we present the events would also be influenced by our current disposition. She finds the process of painting to be the same - a conscious act where the narrator picks and chooses what goes on the canvas.
Photographs have been part of her creative process since the beginning of her artistic journey. Back then, she would use them as a reference, along with lighting and props, to help her construct the image she envisioned in her mind. Now, she begins by scrolling through her camera roll to find pictures that resonate with her at the moment. Given the omnipresence of social media in our daily lives, she would sometimes create collages using images referencing popular culture.
“Painting and experience are two different mediums. To many, different colors, forms, and shapes connote different ideas and emotions. Over time, these things also take on a life of their own with our experiences, contexts, thoughts, and interpretations; what started as my memory is now something Other or something more,” said Ng.
“When Covid hit, it limited my contact with people for a very long time and I found myself spending more time on my phone,” she added. “This allowed me to re-think my relationships with those around me and brought a new perspective to the interactions that I had previously taken for granted. The candid photographs on my phone felt more valuable than ever.”
Kitty Ng, Daiqing and Xiao Lao Shu, 06/08/2022, 10:15, 2023
As the subject of all her paintings are incredibly dear to her, Ng cherishes her work a lot. With her illustrated subjects, as well as the intimate artistic process behind her paintings, Ng’s work is for her just as much as it is for her audience.
“I am also my own audience,” she said. “Sometimes, I paint how I feel in the present about something I have felt in the past for future me to see. I guess you can say it is a conversation of the self.”
"I’m looking at myself like one looks at leaves on a tree - you observe the slowly darkening hue of the leaves until you realize you’re in the middle of fall.”
Wishing to capture the transitory experiences of her life, Ng seeks to illustrate the emotions she could not find the words to express. She compares it to rewatching the Barbie movies, which were her favorite as a child. Upon seeing the terrible graphics, the awkward movements, and the prince that was not as handsome as she remembered, Ng felt let down by the movie being unlike how she had fondly remembered it.
“Describing these emotions, one might say it’s a kind of uncomfortable nostalgia,” said Ng. “But to use a 9-letter word like “nostalgia” to describe this je ne sais quois feeling feels very cheap – it seems like it cheapens the complex, layered emotions that overwhelmed me when I was rewatching the films.”
Aware that using certain words and languages can reduce the complexity of her emotions, Ng is cognizant not to follow set stylistic conventions. Instead, she allows her emotions to lead her brush, seeking to unearth a visual language that reflects the workings of her mind. Just as how emotions and affectations are built up by layers of context and experiences, Ng consciously plays with a multitude of contrasting inspirations and techniques in her creative process. One such technique she uses is the Chinese technique liu bai (留白), which means “to leave blank”, where her paintings solely featuring her subjects against an empty background.
Kitty Ng, Forward, We Go!, 2021
The decision stemmed from her fascination with unfinished Western paintings, examining not only what the artist chose to depict, but also what they may have deliberately or involuntarily left out. Ng’s interest in the idea of absence influenced her to appropriate the technique of liu bai into her works, creating a unique approach based on her Western education and her decidedly Eastern inspirations.
“There’s an example Sartre gives in Being and Nothingness that I love,” said Ng. “Sartre is waiting for his friend Pierre at the cafe. The cafe is noisy and full of people. Yet, Sartre cannot find Pierre. He’s not there. Sartre panics, looking for his friend. At that moment, Pierre’s not being there is louder than the noise from the cafe. His absence is a stronger presence than the people around him.”
“In lots of Western paintings, the back('ground') is simply a canvas where the figure can do things. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the most effective, as the background can often become too noisy, detracting from what’s important, just like the noises in a cafe. Yet, by taking away seemingly crucial bits of information (like Pierre), the question about what’s actually being painted – and what’s not being painted – becomes pressingly important.”
Kitty Ng, S to S, 2021
Ng finds herself reflecting on her state of being with each brushstroke. Each work is filled with a kaleidoscope of hues and tones, all reifying different parts of herself at different moments in time as she mediates her experiences, memories, and thoughts through painting. Her paintings thus continuously take on new forms as she embraces the fallibility of memory and the selective nature of narration.
She said: “I think I continuously discover bits about myself as I paint. As I continue to paint, I’ve been able to look at some of my older paintings, and sometimes even paintings from just months ago, and ruminate. What would I have done differently with it today? Was it wrong to paint this subject a certain way? I’m not quite sure myself. But it seems to me I’m watching my own growth as I go through different life stages and experience new things. My attitudes change and what I’m thinking changes too. From something as simple as how confident my strokes are, to something as complicated as what ideas I want to evoke, my paintings seem to be a reminder of who I am at the moment.”