Siyan Wong

05/18/2024

Happy AAPI history month! If you would like to support a living AAPI artist, may I suggest ... me? Consider an original painting or an archival museum quality print signed by me. I will be so honored to have my art on your wall and possibly in your family conversations.

Museum quality prints and paintings by artist Siyan Wong of projects - Lives of Three Canners, Five Cents a Can, Remembering Our History, Home and Homeless, and Asian American Portraits. Purchases are processed on the 1st and 15th of the month. For quicker processing or to purchase original painting

02/02/2024

Happy Friday! If you are considering a valentines gift, “Intimacy” may be an option. It’s one of my favorite paintings. The “Corky Lee” print came out beautifully. Two bonus Corky Lee cards (5x7) if you place an order before 2/9. Here are what’s available: https://www.siyanwong.com/shop

11/03/2023

06/01/2021

Thanks Shirley Kwan, for supporting my art and becoming the owner of this original painting! I am also grateful for your support of Womankind. (Prints are still available at www.siyanwong.com.)

Corky Lee, Oil on Canvas (2021), 16x20, $888 (25% for charity of purchaser's choice)

In celebration of AAPI month, I am selling this painting of my dear friend Corky Lee. He has been one of my inspirations to keep doing what I love, which is to paint to give voice to our stories and experiences. You can purchase this painting and prints from my website: www.siyanwong.com. (I will be donating 25% of all sales of my art to Womankind in May. So last day is Monday 5/31/21.)

05/29/2021

Corky Lee, Oil on Canvas (2021), 16x20, $888 (25% for charity of purchaser's choice)

In celebration of AAPI month, I am selling this painting of my dear friend Corky Lee. He has been one of my inspirations to keep doing what I love, which is to paint to give voice to our stories and experiences. You can purchase this painting and prints from my website: www.siyanwong.com. (I will be donating 25% of all sales of my art to Womankind in May. So last day is Monday 5/31/21.)

05/16/2021

HT Chen, Oil on Canvas (2021), 24W x30H x .67D, $4200 (25% of proceeds will be donated to Chen Dance Center)

I am honoring H.T. Chen and his contributions with this painting. HT Chen is a dancer and choreographer who devoted his life to sharing the Chinese American experience through dance. In 1978, together with his wife Dian D**g, also a dancer, they founded the dance school Chen Dance Center. As a dancer, he traveled with Dian to perform across the US and internationally as H.T. Chen & Dancers, the first and only Chinese American dance company in the United States. Today, he and Dian continue to give opportunities to children and dancers to realize dance as an art form and for good health through classes run at Chen Dance Center.

You can find my other paintings in my Asian American Portraits project on my website: www.siyanwong.com.

05/12/2021

Join me in a discussion at Asia Society New York about the documentary "Who Killed Vincent Chin" as a cautionary tale for current mobilization around Anti-Asian violence, and how art can help sustain this energy for long term social justice for all. This is a recording so you can watch at anytime. Let me know what you think. https://asiasociety.org/video/asia-society-movies-who-killed-vincent-chin

Michelle Yun Mapplethorpe, vice president of global artistic programs, leads a discussion with artists Kenneth Tam and Siyan Wong to examine the lasting legacy of Vincent Chin's story.

03/21/2021

Peter Kwong, Oil on Canvas (2021), 16x20, $888 (25% for charity of purchaser's choice)

Here is Peter Kwong, a professor and an activist for justice. When he passed away four years ago, on March 17, 2017, scholars and community activists alike took a pause to absorb the pain. He was a journalist and a scholar who spent time with the people he wrote about - he truly cared how his work affects people's lives. Since his passing, there has been a void because no other scholars have given voice like he did to the struggles of Chinese immigrant working class and put in context their experiences in world events. I hope young scholars find in themselves the same curiosity and persistence in writing about the experiences of the working poor in our community. Here is one of his talks: https://youtu.be/1--B_60PXOw

You can find my other paintings in my Asian American Portraits project on my website: www.siyanwong.com.

03/02/2021

I launched my new website: www.siyanwong.com. Check it out!

Reminder: I will be talking about my current projects and paintings at my talk about social justice art to benefit Womankind on Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 pm. Here is link to RSVP: https://www.iamwomankind.org/2021/02/11/siyan-wong/

02/28/2021

Join me to talk about social justice art to benefit Womankind on Thursday, March 4, at 7:30 pm. Here is link to RSVP: https://www.iamwomankind.org/2021/02/11/siyan-wong/

Looking forward to meeting you! Please share.

02/15/2021

What is Social Justice Art?

March 4 | 7:30 pm EST (Virtual by Zoom and Free)

You are invited! Please join me for this artist talk to benefit Womankind.

I paint to give voice to myself and the voiceless. I paint to add something meaningful to the world - to record a voice that would otherwise be absent. I invite you to join me for a discussion of my projects, art, vision and social justice. If you are inclined to buy any of my paintings, please know that 25% of sales will be donated to Womankind if purchased in March, April or May 2021.

Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-is-social-justice-art-a-talk-with-artist-siyan-to-benefit-womankind-tickets-141757535605

About Siyan Wong:
Siyan Wong is a New York City based artist who focuses on the working poor, the homeless, women and the elderly. As a workers' rights lawyer, her contact with everyday working people informs her empathy and artistic vision. Her current and on-going projects include "Five Cents A Can: Making Visible the Invisible.” It is about the people who survive on picking up cans and bottles in a city of abundance. This project is supported by grants from the Asian Women Giving Circle and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. It is also fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her other projects include “Home and Homeless” and “Remembering Our History,” currently in development.

About Womankind:
Womankind, formerly the New York Asian Women’s Center, works with survivors of gender-based violence to rise above trauma and build a path to healing. Since 1982, they have been bringing critical resources and deep cultural humility to help survivors of all ages find refuge, recovery, and renewal from domestic violence, human trafficking, and sexual violence. Their expertise is serving Asian communities, but what they offer is valuable to all. Whether in their services or in their increasing advocacy and policy work, Womankind first centers the survivor by uplifting them to control their own lives and narratives.

02/01/2021

I am selling this painting for $888 USD (oil on canvas, 16x20). "Familiar Stranger" is a portrait painting of a woman who I saw in the Lower East Side a few years ago. Her hands were each holding a bag filled with bottles and cans. Her eyes shot back at me with fear and wonder. That look imprinted in my memory a woman who tries to survive but lives with uncertainty everyday. I don't know how she "lives" - what can she buy at five cents a can/bottle? This is my third painting in my Asian American Portrait project. All paintings in this project will have 25% of the proceeds go to a charity of the purchaser's choice.

01/28/2021

In memory of Corky Lee, the Official Asian American Photographer Laureate. This is the second painting in my Asian American Portrait project. Yup, he is official. We all recognized him that way so why "unofficial?" I painted this before his passing, and this is how he will always be remembered in my mind - an artist true to his passion of photographing a people so as to record what mainstream often ignored or misrepresented. For that, he embodied the American spirit and the vision of an artist. His spirit and work live on.

01/21/2021

Thank you, Amy, for loving this painting and owning it now. It’s definitely one of my favorite.

01/19/2021

Sold Andrew Yang painting. Contribution made to Andrew Yang's mayoral campaign. Thanks, Shirley-Kwan Hui! (I paid a few more dollars and paid tips.)

01/18/2021

I am selling this painting for $888 USD (oil on canvas, 16x20). Andrew Yang is running for mayor. I painted him in my first painting for my Asian American Portrait Project because I support his policies and anti-poverty plans. I am proud he has chosen politics to make a difference. We need good leaders in politics who are not afraid to go against the flow. It will take us to keep him true to his commitments. To support his candidacy, I am donating 25% of the proceeds from this painting ($222) to his campaign, which would mean $1776 since it's matched 8x. As an Asian American artist with a focus on social justice art, I am proud he is inspiring our next generation of Americans of Asian descent to affect policies/laws that impact us all. (I am working on setting up a FB shop. Meanwhile, check out my past events at www.siyanwong.com. I will be updating/changing my website with my current paintings in 2021.) If you are interested, please message or email me at [email protected]. Thanks.

01/16/2021

Launching my Asian American Portrait Project with the portrait of Andrew Yang. In 2021, I will be painting and selling portraits of Asian Americans who I know and don't know. My goal is to capture our common humanity (hope, joy, pain...) all on our faces. Please join me, and hang in there with me, on this journey! (Note: work in progress on this Andrew Yang portrait)

01/10/2021

Sketching my next painting on the plight of resilient Chinese women in NYC. They are my heroes. I admire the strength of their spirit to live, to provide for their family, despite hardships. I have no illusions. They need a voice and representation.