Raymond Hwang (CV)

Ray Hwang (b. 1992) is an artist from Los Angeles, currently living and working out of Ridgewood, NY. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts in 2016 and has participated in exhibitions in Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, New Jersey and throughout New York City. He enjoys watching and playing basketball in his free time, and what he lacks in talent he makes up for in enthusiasm.

Artist Statement

My work often draws from the fallacy and inadequacy of memory, and how it relates to themes of family and violence within my second generation Asian American experience. Throughout my paintings, forms are rendered with differing levels of atmospheric energy that challenge the idea of what is concrete. I choose to embrace the inaccuracies that reveal themselves afterwards because I believe there’s a reason our minds remember things a certain way. All of the elements in my paintings feel like actors in a play, responding to a director, an unreliable narrator, who loathes the idea of a rehearsal. The paintings, with very little or no preparatory work, come into existence one move at a time. In the end, we’re left with the record of an event that may not reflect factual history, but maybe more importantly a genuine emotional history.

The characters that I utilize are often relics of my past and other specific artifacts that reference moments in personal history. The silhouette of a backscratcher becomes a spectre of fear, while a half eaten vietnamese Banh Mi sandwich is love. This cast of characters and actors are then morphed into a cartoon-ish fiction of personal folklore that suggest and allude to how family, violence, and humor have frequently intersected throughout my life.

That being said, I don’t pretend to understand everything about my work and it’s often that fact that pushes me to continue making it. With that, I hope that new narratives will be revealed and that we’re left with more questions than answers.