Elim Mak, Teapots of Eternity from Sermon Notes series, 2023, acrylic, watercolor, and sermon notes on unstretched canvas, 11.5” × 14.5”

Familiar Stranger
March 12 – April 11, 2026
Opening Reception: March 12, 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Siyan Wong’s paintings depict immigrant Chinese women working in garment factories, restaurants, homecare, and as street vendors. Inspired by the immigrant dreams of a better life and the reality of survival in a dehumanizing economy, Wong notes that her paintings “make the lives of Chinese women, and the working poor, visible while directing the viewer’s gaze to their body and soul as they toil.” A self-taught artist, Wong’s outsider painting style, replete with decorative patterning, shallow pictorial space, and panning compositions, offers a closely observed, unfiltered, cinematic view of the unrelenting struggles, yet earnest fortitude, of her subjects.

In keeping with Wong's commitment to including and giving back to community voices, Wong has chosen to devote the latter two sections of the gallery to group exhibitions that feature other artists. The center gallery is introduced by Wong's painting Familiar Stranger, depicting an elderly Asian woman she saw collecting cans and bottles in the Lower East Side to exchange for five cents a piece at the collection center. Her particular facial expression, of someone surviving precariously, synthesizes Wong's concerns about immigrant and migrant labor. 

"Familiar Stranger" thus forms the title and basis of the group exhibition featuring work by contemporary artists who expand the dialogue on human life made abject during their assimilation to the US: Luisa Henao, Ying Hung, Sharon Cheuk Wun Lee, Elim Mak, and Mary Ting.