Chinoiserie (Chinesey Things) brings together a disparate array of forms, colors, themes, and elements evocative of the artists’ Chinese American identities. Father-daughter team, Adrian Wong and Clementine Reid Wong (second and third-generation immigrants, respectively) collaboratively produced the works on view while reflecting on the question, “What makes a thing Chinese?” and further to the more intrinsic question of “What makes us Chinese?” Thetitle of the exhibition, Chinoiserie, is drawn from the emergence of Orientalist motifs in 17^th century European decorative arts, from Rococo frescoes to Delftware to Medici Porcelain – specifically, the imitation of Chinese artistic traditions built upon an imagined, romantic ideal of the Far East, or, as abstracted by Reid Wong in the parenthetical, “Chinesey Things”. The gifted 5-year-old Reid Wong, who grew up in a more multi-cultural society than her father, questions and brings to fore design elements imbued in what is seen as her cultural heritage.

Adrian Wong was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois in 1980. Originally trained in psychology (MA, Stanford ‘03), he pursued his post-graduate studies in sculpture (MFA, Yale ‘05). Wong’s studio was based in Hong Kong until 2018, when he returned to Chicago, where he currently serves as an Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute. His work has been exhibitednationally and internationally at The Drawing Center (New York), Kuandu Museum (Taipei), Kunsthalle Wien, Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstverein (Hamburg), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul), Palazzo Reale(Milan), Saatchi Gallery (London), and Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam) – and can be found in public and private collections worldwide, including the 21C Collection (Chicago), DSL Foundation (Paris), K11 Art Foundation (Shanghai), Kadist Foundation (San Francisco), M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Sifang Museum (Nanjing), and the UliSigg Collection (Lucerne).

Clementine Reid Wong was born in Los Angeles in 2017 but relocated to Chicago with her family in 2018. Her dual interests in color and affect theory stem from her exposure to contemporary art at a young age, both of which guide her practice. Reid Wong, with the guidance of her father, curated her first show, Wow, an exhibition of SAIC MFA candidates for Perennial Space Gallery in 2020. She has studied art since 2021 with Wendy Rejman, Agnes Guerra, and Amparo Dominguez Austin at Drummond Montessori School and has attended exhibitions at cultural institutions, domestically and internationally, including the Art Institute of Chicago, MCA (Chicago), LACMA (Los Angeles), Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong), the Barbican (London), and Hayward Gallery (London), among others.