I begin with observation, objects collected, dioramas built in the studio, drawings made from life. A narrative starts to form and I let it. Then I push it away.
That moment of resistance is important. I want the painting to develop beyond what I intended, to go somewhere I couldn't have planned. Each layer is a decision made, then reconsidered, then followed wherever it leads. The work finds its own logic before I return to it with any kind of judgement.
What I bring back is the question of how much to reveal. I work semi-abstractly by intention, not as a style but as a way of holding open the space between the painting and the person looking at it. The animal emerges, or is half-hidden, or is felt before it is found. I am interested in that edge: where recognition and sensation meet, where the viewer is free to find their own way in.
A painting is finished when it holds that balance, specific enough to be felt, and open enough to be completed by someone else.
That question doesn't sit the same way in every painting. In some, it's play, the animal left half-seen so there's room for someone else to bring their own imagination in. In others, it's the animal holding a room it shares with me but won't hand over. In others, it's still being worked out, how much of what I want the animal to be, against how much stays wild regardless. Different settings, the same question, still open.
Eleanor Wong, 2026