Chatwin Arts presents a major two-month, two-part retrospective of the Chinese American artist James Leong (1929-2011). Part I spans from the 1950s through the 1970s, while he lived in Europe in “exile.” Part II covers his work from the 1970s to the early 2000s, which is on view now until March 1, and includes paintings after a family visit to China and his move to Seattle in 1991. I highly recommend this exhibit. Go see it before it ends.
James Leong is one of those artists who could have been lost to history. It delights my heart to know that there are family and friends who want and work to keep his art alive. Out of the 250 works still in the family, viewers get to see about 80 total.
Part I showed 30 pieces on the walls, plus about 25 smaller pieces in plastic sleeves resting in a print rack. There were 16 pieces of the Splash series, 7 in the Shell series, some early figurative works from the 1950s and a few from the geometric fibonacci series.
I noticed the fibonacci spiral in many paintings such as “Hidden,” “Profound,” “Incame.” Landscape began to appear in geometric mountain form in the 1960s and evolved into more organic shapes as in “Echo” and “Trapped Pezium” in the 1970s. Titles are often drawn from literary sources, and can be humorous as in “A-Peeling.”
Many of the paintings, especially those from the Splash series in the later 1970s, such as “Veil”, “Pulse,” and “Caput Mor Tuum,” look like layers of colorful fabrics or peeling paint. Once you look closely, you realize that they are flat as a drum. You can’t believe your eyes because the “layers” do not exist and come out from color differences only.
Many pieces in the Splash series also look like happy accidents. But according to Leong’s widow Dean Leong, there were no accidents. James Leong controlled every aspect of the painting, and used various unconventional techniques such as blowing with a hair dryer, to obtain the look and effect that he was after.
Having recently written about the Chinese American artist Martin Wong (1946 – 1999) whose art was at the Frye Art Museum, I cannot help but compare Wong and Leong. Both artists experienced being the outsider, not belonging as a Chinese, and not belonging as an American. Both artists had to move away to places where their “outsider-ness” did not detract from their creative impulses.
“Born in San Francisco in 1929, Leong faced discrimination both in and out of the Chinese community coming out of the Great Depression. As a young artist, his mural depiction of the history of Chinese people in San Francisco famously caused an uproar in his own community because it was felt he portrayed the community unfairly,” reads an explanation in the exhibit.
“The Cold War added another layer of persecution, where stepping out of Chinatown exposed one to threats and violence. The threats erupted even more when Leong married a white woman at a time when anti-miscegenation laws frowned on such things.”
Of course, there are lots of differences between Wong and Leong. Wong’s paintings draw from the ultra local, his surroundings, his possessions. They are often large and representational. They exude frenetic energy and emotion. His colors are rooted in the reddish brown of the brick.
Leong’s mature paintings are much more abstract, pointing to universal and literary themes, imaginary or remembered landscapes; its energy seems to be concealed inside the paintings. His colors come from the reds, greens, and yellows of jewels.
Part I of this retrospective also exhibited some of the earlier figurative paintings from the 1950s, some based on the tarot cards such as “Oslofjord” and “Tournament.”
“I was a very angry person but that anger was harnessed and expressed in painting (from Leong’s time in European exile),” said Leong. The expressionist brushwork and colors make his feelings apparent, and also his immersion into the western art canon.
Looking at the progression of his work, I’ve come to see that by the 1960s, Leong had a growing tool belt of techniques that would enable him to fully realize his imagination.
In Part II, there are a couple of the older landscape based paintings, some from the Splash series, some that explore the conflict and confluence of East and West, and eight paintings influenced by Chinese landscapes.
These, such as “Monied Mountain,” “Mountain Chop,” “Lijiang” related ones, contain a particular green color based on malachite that is often used in traditional painting. Leong combined impressions of funerary paper money and buddhist amulets to allude to aspects of Chinese society, perhaps the obsession with money, the pragmatic approach to religion, and ancestor worship.
The color red is a Chinese symbol of happiness. When I first saw his painting “Tiananmen” from 1989 without knowing the title, I admired the beautiful colors emerging from a tapestry of red. Once I realized the title, the painting takes on a darker context. I now see the exploding and dripping red and imagine how Leong felt about the student protest and subsequent violent crackdown from the government. The painting now reflects a multitude of emotions, not just violence, but also love, hate, pain, loss, disbelief and confusion.
In the other 1989 paintings in the show, “China Embroidery,” “Flight,” “Exit,” “Ming Morsel,” and “Squiggles,” the motifs float within and are enclosed by their background. I feel that the motifs are in danger of being consumed, interrupted and scattered by forces outside of them; I feel their ephemeral beauty and colors. They evoke foreboding, nervous energy, and unease.
One senses that the Tiananmen protest and Leong’s China visit as turning points in Leong’s art. Now, Leong let his guard down against Chinese influence and tradition. He was open to adapt the Chinese art language to his process. Leong’s paintings are still very much recognizable as his art, and they now have an additional cultural context. Whereas before, the artist’s process was invisible, now the hand or brushwork is visible.
I imagine Leong using brushes of various sizes, his hand, arm, body moving across the paper. Each painting is like a piece of music, recording the artist’s creative process over time, brushing, stamping, pasting, dripping, mixing colors, layering.
And even as these paintings reference places or memories, they point to greater ideas and feelings that are in Leong’s mind. He hinted at them through his titles, and left the rest for us to discover and imagine. We are free to complete the art, as we always have been in his art.
Leong said it best himself: “I realized I was always Chinese, but there’s the duality of taking the next step. As an American, you can never really be Chinese, even if you speak it and know the culture. There’s a part of you that’s American that’s so different. And those are the things that came out of my paintings.”
The Art of James Leong: A Retrospective, Part II runs from February 6 – March 1, 2025 at Chatwin Arts.
