Continue? 10, 9, 8...

Opening Reception
Friday, November 11, 2022, 7—10pm

Artist's Talk
Friday, November 11, 2022, 7pm

Exhibition continues to December 23

Cleveland-based artist Jordan Wong (aka WONGFACE) presents a series of new and recent work that collate and hybridize both the artist's cultural background and the myriad influences of his childhood—from video games to anime—to construct a new, expressive and vibrant visual language. The exhibition's title Continue? 10, 9, 8... (borrowed from video game prompts) is itself a bold assertion of anticipatory enthusiasm that thematically springs into the emphatic and bold designs that comprise Wong's various artworks.

Wong's profession as a graphic designer also informs his weaving of distinct symbols, iconographies, and typography throughout works that may be blunt and concise or manically detailed in expression. Again and again, Wong's works assert a sense of affirmation. They are imbued with possibility and exude positive energy, amplified by Wong's energetic and graphic stylizations. In a pair of lightbox sculptures, Wong takes the oft-used—let's say ubiquitously over-used—symbol of yin-yang and refashions it as an ebullient piece of signage framed and newly-defined by the phrase SUPER CULTURE. He transports the symbol from cliché and nudges it back towards a signifier of Chinese American ethnicity, culture, and identity. At the same time, this act of cultural reclamation is not ethnically-exclusive—in Wong's dynamic rendering, there is also the idea that ALL are welcome within the SUPER CULTURE.

Large wooden die-cut reliefs feature his "small but mighty" Little Hero—a caped protagonist based on Kimiaki Taegashi's version of Kintaro—and Kaiju XS (Green Edition), a squat rendition of a Godzilla creature. The former is heroic and poised for action while the latter, though visually adorable, still contains a tone of potential menace. It is as though Wong is acknowledging threats while still being ready for action.

Wong's work—replicating comic and animation styles—moves seamlessly between those in vibrant color and those in graphic black and white. Choose Your Character is a dynamic monolith sculpture that offers the viewer their choice of a multitude of avatar characters to serve in their stead, a reiteration that character choice is not merely a video game trope but a real life scenario in which we need to select our most appropriate path. By contrast, in three collaborative works with Karl Anderson, illustrative and graphic elements are mixed with typographical forms in a play of reconstructed words and phrases: Mind Over Matter, Eureka, and Man—each a symbolically rich terrain of possibilities.

In the largest work in the exhibition, Manga, the visual style of Japanese comics is used to abstractly portray an imaginative tale of finding belonging, overcoming bigotry, and empowering oneself. The narrative presented is oblique, as though plucked from the middle of a larger tale, but is teeming with dynamic imagery that imparts a determined sense of self, articulating an identity that rises up when circumstance challenges. Bookended by action-packed panels, the center of the large work features our protagonist shouting OPEN while astride a gigantic turtle, a symbol of longevity, power, and tenacity.

www.wongface.com