Jessica Silverman is pleased to announce Chelsea Ryoko Wong: Gravitational Pull, on view from March 11 to April 23, 2022 in the gallery’s second-floor space. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery and presents a series of new paintings—vibrant figurative compositions that reflect the diversity and style of her home in San Francisco. Her scenic vignettes demonstrate sociality and joy as forms of resistance and empowerment.

Wong’s brightly colored and heavily stylized paintings beam with the beauty and vitality of interpersonal connections. Like a sequence of dreams, they depict figures swimming among fish in turquoise water, napping on hot rocks, watching the sunset, and delighting together in a feast of dungeness crab. Like in Musseling on a Foggy Day (2022), the natural landscape figures heavily

in her works. She draws inspiration from California landscapes: the Yuba River, Sea Ranch and the Joshua Tree National Park. As a backdrop, celebrating nature works to fortify the central theme of the exhibition—the gravitational pull, or invisible force, that grounds us on Earth.

While contemplative and serene, the works in Gravitational Pull portray energetic crowds, often praising sisterhood and community spirit. In works such as A Modern Feast (2022), the subjects are playful, strong and self-possessed, representing a collective of identities that defy political turbulence. Moving through the artist’s own memory, heritage and a grand social and political vision for the world, Wong’s layered compositions use a commanding sense of color and form to celebrate the most tranquil ideals of communal existence.