Wong Shun Yu Ella
Ella Wong is a Hong Kong-based artist who works primarily with Chinese ink. Working on materials like paper and cloth, she also uses various pigments such as colour pencils, acrylic, and chalk pastels to complement her ink art. Wong’s artistic vision is rooted in introspection and personal narrative—her work often directly takes imagery from deeply personal experiences, meditating on her own tribulations in life, as well as expanding them into universally-felt human concerns with mortality, cultural identity, and relationships. In combining classical Chinese art with contemporary themes, her works effuse a raw authenticity that dances the line between the intimate experience and the shared experience.
黃舜愉現生活和工作於香港，主要使用中國水墨作為媒介，在紙張和布料等材料上進行藝術創作，同時輔以各種顏料，如彩色鉛筆、丙烯和粉筆。黃氏的藝術視野植根於內省和個人敘事，她的作品往往直接從深刻的個人經歷中提取意象，沉思自己的人生磨難，並將其擴展至對人類普遍關注的死亡、文化身份和人際關係等問題的探討。她的作品將中國傳統藝術與當代主題相結合，在親身經歷與共同體驗之間遊走。
Chinese ink and colour pencil on hospital duvet cover and cloth underpad
醫院被套及橫單，水墨及彩鉛
Set of 4, 216cm x 145cm, 90cm x 179cm, 140cm x 125 cm, 96cm x 139cm
一系列四幅，216厘米 x 145厘米，90厘米 x 179厘米，140厘米 x 125 厘米，96厘米 x 139厘米
On the 5th of August, 2023, my father was involved in a car crash. The accident left him with severe spinal cord injuries, a fractured 11th vertebrae, and the nearly complete erasure of his ability to move his lower body.
Of physical pain, Virginia Woolf writes this in her 1926 essay "On Being Ill": "The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry. There is nothing ready made for him. He is forced to coin words himself, and, taking his pain in one hand, and a lump of pure sound in the other (as perhaps the people of Babel did in the beginning), so to crush them together that a brand new word in the end drops out."
2023年8月5日，我父親遭遇了一場車禍。 這場意外導致他的脊髓嚴重損傷，第11節椎骨骨折，並且幾乎完全喪失移動下半身的能力。
1926年，維吉尼亞·伍爾夫發表了一篇名為《論生病》（On Being Ill）的文章。伍爾夫寫道：「當一個普通女孩墮入愛河，她可以以莎士比亞或濟慈的文字道出自己的心聲；但當病患嘗試向醫生描述自己的痛楚時，語言卻立刻如河水般流乾。他的詞庫空空如也。他被迫自己杜撰新詞，然後，以一隻手拿起他的痛楚，再用另一隻手抓緊一團聲音（也許就像當時巴別塔的人們所做一般），把他們壓在一起直至一個全新的字因此成型。」
2023
Mixed media
Size variable
Inspired by May Fung's work of the same title, this work deliberates the shared uncertainties women face in political times. The goal of the game is to reach the end of the map. Throughout the game, prompt cards are distributed, and each player is expected to vote 1-5 times based on the prompts. However, one player has been "blindfolded"—the cards she receives are blank, and she can only guess which number to choose based on other players' reactions. As such, she may accidentally vote against her own interests. Kind-hearted players might vote in her favour, but they quickly realise it dooms their own fates in game. The cards incite infighting and encourage participants to target the "blindfolded" player, distracting them from asking the real question—why is it considerably harder for some to get to the end of the map? As the game progresses, we subconsciously compare her to the others: everyone is given the equal task of traversing the landscape, yet she is the only one at a disadvantage and forced to remain in the dark. She cannot ask for help from other players, and she cannot voice out the unfairness of the game.
2023
Oil pastels on paper
59.4cm x 84.1cm
My little brother and my previous partner both suffered from severe depression, suicide ideation and self-harm tendencies. For the past five years, I took on the role of a caretaker voluntarily to protect my loved ones from harm. However, this took a large toll on my own mental health eventually and continues to shape my worldview. During good months, the locked drawer besides my desk held money, jewellery, and photographs. During bad months, it was a vault for sharps and medication. One can deduce the state of my life and my relationships depending on what was in my drawer that month.