Loving Matthew Wong’s Art!
Start again
I haven’t painted for six months. I haven’t been able to do it.
Since I was 24, I have suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or OCD.
This “short circuit” in my brain causes me to shower with intrusive and distressing thoughts and deep depression.
It is a significantly limiting disease. When it’s at its peak, it’s almost impossible to work or concentrate on anything.
The first incident was in 1987, but I recovered without knowing what happened.
Many years later, harmful thoughts appeared substantially, especially at the beginning of the new millennium.
On several occasions, they misdiagnosed me until, thank God, a psychiatrist in New York in 2008 found the problem, and I received medical help.
In 2012, I had a crisis resulting from a context in which it mixed my illness with a sentimental situation that led me to two suicide attempts and stopped painting for two years.
As I got better, I returned to my everyday life at the end of 2014.
A few months ago, I went into another severe depressive crisis of OCD again.
Finding inspiration
Today, going through an issue of Artforum magazine, I discovered an extraordinary Canadian artist named Matthew Wong. His enigmatic landscapes of him, intensely colored but finely harmonized, captivated me.
Those who know me know that I am a fan of Matisse and that I love impressionists and post-impressionists like Gauguin and Van Gogh.
Well, Wong, who was self-taught, has in his enchanting views of nature an air that evokes those masters of universal art.
It is not for nothing that Roberta Smith, the co-chief art critic of the New York Times, wrote this about the works of Matthew Wong:
“Mr. Wong made some of the most irresistible paintings I’ve ever encountered. I fell for the patchwork of color and stippled patterns of his landscapes at the Frieze New York art fair of 2017 in Karma’s booth. It was a visceral experience, like falling for an unforgettable song on first listen.
It was deeply nourishing: my life improved, and I know other people who have had the same reaction. Such relatively unalloyed pleasure is almost as essential as food.”
For me, Roberta’s experience has been the same as mine. She’s right when she says other people might react similarly.
Today I talked to my psychiatrist before. After enjoying these paintings, by a self-taught master who suffered from autism and depression, I have felt motivated and encouraged to continue.
It will be challenging to start painting without thinking about the academy and the traditional methods already learned. Still, precisely this uncertainty, the adventure, excites my creative thinking to discover what I could do from this moment on!
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