The house sits at the foot of a spring-green mountain, painted over with long cascading strokes of darker green, giving the impression of a verdant and peaceful setting. Contrast this to the brown ridge where the figure is sitting, huddled in a long sleeve jacket, hands tucked into pockets. The ridge is barren except for a single tree that is mostly bare branches with sparse pale-pink leaves.

Matthew Wong was a rising young painter who died of suicide on October 2, 2019. In a moving obituary by the New York Times, his mother explained that Mr. Wong “was on the autism spectrum, had Tourette’s syndrome and had grappled with depression since childhood.” This helps to explain the sense of isolation and longing in the painting, depicted by the solitary figure on a barren ridge, looking back at a house in lush green surroundings. The figure also appears to be physically cold, wrapped in long sleeve coat, hands tucked in pockets, with no skin showing, but is sadly separated from shelter by an icy white distance. This dynamic, amidst a landscape of majestic mountain rising into star-crowded sky, gives a sense of melancholy beauty and loneliness.

The title of the painting, “See you on the Other Side,” can be interpreted in numerous ways. Mr. Wong is known for incorporating mythical elements into his work, so is this the beginning of the hero’s journey? If the tree in the foreground is interpreted as being laden with pale pink flower buds, there is a sense of hope and promise that the figure is leaving home and will return triumphant on the other side. But the tree can also be seen as a representation of fall transitioning into winter, hanging onto a few withered leaves, as the last bright red autumnal leaf blows away. Is the figure heading away from the verdant house and mountain into winter, the season that classically symbolizes death? Does the other side refer to an afterlife? A third interpretation to consider is that the figure is not leaving the house, but actually trying to get there. In this case, on the other side would refer to crossing the vast white expanse where no path is marked and no help is in sight.

View the painting at Museum of Fine Arts Boston ➔

Matthew Wong’s Biography: www.matthewwongfoundation.org/biography
A previous version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database.
Web image from www.matthewwongfoundation.org/

Japanese American artist Henry Sugimoto (1900-1990) depicted life in the Arkansas internment camps into which he and his entire family (including wife and child) and many others of Japanese descent were forced, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Sugimoto’s life and painting were profoundly influenced by his incarceration. His subjects changed from landscapes to scenes of camp life and the Japanese emigration/immigration experience; these works often had social and political purpose. This scene is bleak, almost colorless; the sky is cloudy. Barracks stretch on either side of a narrow road in repetitive monotony. Too lone figures are the only people in sight and the only vegetation detectable, besides marsh grass, is the sketchy outline of treetops in the distance. Sugimoto told an interviewer that he used to go to the edge of the camp and try to imagine the Arkansas landscape beyond. 

Nisei Babies in Concentration Camp

Children were born during the 1940s internment of Japanese Americans – life went on. Second generation Japanese (Nisei) who were U.S. citizens by law were incarcerated along with their parents. Perhaps the children in this picture are faceless because Americans were treating people of Japanese descent as one deindividualized and dehumanized entity, to be viewed with suspicion and distrust. This painting juxtaposes helpless infants with military might and barbed wire. Sugimoto uses the term, “concentration camp” in labeling the scene, while the U.S. government called them “relocation camps” (people were relocated from the West Coast to the U.S. interior).

Harsh Canvas: Henry Sugimoto

An earlier version of this review was published in the NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (Litmed).
Henry Sugimoto’s Self Portrait from Wiki Commons