PAUL WONG IN THE VANCOUVER SUN

Paul Wong, Solstice (installation view), 2014

This week, Kevin Griffin covers #PAULWONG2014 for the Vancouver Sun, aptly naming Paul a "passionate spectator". Griffin offers detailed insight on Solstice especially. "Referring to the longest or shortest day of the year," he writes, "solstice suggests a natural cycle not usually associated with a gritty, urban scene.

"Solstice records the life of a street that’s part of what makes Vancouver the kind of place it is – just as much as the Seawall and Wreck Beach. Works such as Solstice make me think of Wong as a contemporary version of what Charles Baudelaire called, in the 19th century, a passionate spectator: an artist whose work is intimately connected to the city. In Solstice and much of his other work, Wong substitutes a camera for a paint brush to record what Baudelaire called the “fugitive and the infinite.”

"I don’t want to give the impression that Solstice is a restful, calming video. It’s not. It may be mesmerizing to watch but it’s full of anxiety and restlessness. There is no resolution to the activity, just a slowing down and speeding up as the times of the day change. The work is accompanied by an electronic soundscape by Thomas Anselmi and Phil Western that’s as insistent as the hum of traffic."

Read more in the Vancouver Sun.

Paul Wong will be giving an artist talk at 2pm on Saturday, February 15th -- the last day of his exhibition. RSVP.