Gary Wong

Decoding The Indecipherable:

Picturing The Blues In The Enigmatic Paintings of SoCal Artist Gary Wong (a.k.a. Charlie Chan)

July 31, 2024

Prologue

Nestled in an alcove of a large Victorian home shared with extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.,) was a twin bed. His own private room of sorts with a French window at one end of the bed looking over LA’s storied twenty-first street. A young Gary Wong would open the window, climb outside, and sit on the roof to “observe and listen.”  Two Holy Roller Churches stood on opposite corners. “The magic,” said Gary, “was when the music from both congregations overlapped. It was the mesh that got me.”  A little bit up the street was The Big Room, a community center consisting of one large room and a loud jukebox. “Now with the jukebox playing and the churches singing, I had all three things going on at once. And if I was really lucky, sometimes the Mexicans around the block had a quinceañera with a Mariachi band playing but that was once in a Blue Moon.  But to have all four elements happening at once, at the same time, it didn’t make any sense but it was all a cacophony of wow. It was a beautiful thing.”

Introduction

The word enigma was first coined not to categorize people or things but used as an identifier to words.  Specifically, to words that challenged a person’s capacity to decipher the hidden meaning behind them. In fact, the Greek equivalent for enigma, ainissesthai, literally means “to speak in riddles.” Contrary to what his mystifying word paintings may suggest, infer, or hum, Gary Wong does not speak in riddles. His soft spokenness, delivered as if construed premeditatively, comes accompanied with a glare of fierceness and certainty. Yet there exists a cautionary air to his laid-back demeanor. 

In the L.A. of his youth, from the confines of his “yellow, brown, and black neighborhood,” being part of a gang was de rigueur and the street rules facilitated a do or die mentality. Often, choices were twofold: either make a run for it or stick around and find out. The stick around option was often fatal. By the time Gary was fourteen, he was witness to nine murders. One being the father of his friend. Killed by the friend’s mother. Stabbed to death at the front door of the home they shared across the street from Gary’s where the two young boys happened to be sitting, watching, on the front porch. The alcove overlooking the street became more than a place to sleep. It was a birds-eye-view retreat from the unsettling madness that prevailed curbside, a place to grab-hold L.A.’s comforting din and envisage the world far beyond the pale of his youth. A perch which afforded the ruse of separation. Gary would never see his friend (or his friend's mother) again; to him, “They just disappeared. The illogical sequence of events–the murder and the disappearance thereafter–left an indelible mark on the young Mr. Wong’s perception of reality that he'd soon learn had always been strange and yet, to an even greater degree, would become dramatically more peculiar. Nothing was as it seemed.  

Opening Act

Wong’s story is a long and circuitous one. It begins a century and half before he was born with his Chinese great-grandfather’s arrival on American shores at the age of twelve to meet up with an uncle and cousin who already lived in San Francisco. A year later, all three were living in Northern California near the border of Oregon at a place called Happy Camp along the Klamath River working on gold-dig sites. Among other derogatory things, the Chinese workers were called Powder Monkeys because they were the ones who lit the dynamite that made mining for gold possible. The Wong family's first American lesson: being expendable.

Born in Oakland, CA in 1944, his mother’s parents were Elders in the Korean Presbyterian Church and ran a Single Room Occupancy Hotel, bathhouse, and barbershop in Oakland. His father’s family had a restaurant and bakery in San Francisco’s Chinatown. His Chinese-American-born father was a veteran of World War II and after the war took full advantage of the GI Bill becoming, according to Gary, “a middle-class American as a Dental technician. In 1948, the family moved to Los Angeles for better opportunities and began living on 21st street, a well known street in the Chinese-American community because it was one of the first neighborhoods outside of L.A.’s Chinatown that Chinese-Americans (along with Blacks, and Latinos) were allowed to buy a home. This was post World War II and as Gary points out, “it was the old LA, before skyscrapers, freeways and when the streets were less jammed with cars; before the Dodgers and when the theaters and movies were all grand.”

In perhaps overdetermined fashion, Gary’s early years were marred by mockery and exclusion on top of the already prevalent racism and prejudice that existed. Firstly, he was made fun of for being Asian, and secondly, scrutinized for being mixed race: half Chinese, half Korean. Then there was the constant bullying for being the youngest in his crowded house as well as for being the smallest at school which, due to his birthdate, ensured he was developmentally behind. The early grammar school head-start proved more detrimental than advantageous. As was the luck-of-the-draw with a last name beginning with the letter “W” in alphabetically inclined rules regimes.  As such, Wong was always relegated to the back of the class, which made seeing and hearing more difficult. Interestingly, he somehow always wound up sitting next to his classmate, Barry Eugene Carter. Better known as the legendary bass singer, Barry White.   

At school, they forced Gary to switch from writing with his left hand–as he did naturally–to using his right hand, unnaturally. A common malpractice of the time. At home, Gary was scolded for using his chopsticks with his left hand.  A cultural no-no in whose enforcement Gary’s dad was adamant.  From the get-go, his natural rhythms and flows were challenged, demonized, censured. Once, a schoolmate came over to his easel and began pointing and giggling at his painting. Soon the entire class was laughing at Gary’s landscape including the teacher. He was ridiculed for “not making the grass green, the sky blue, or the sun yellow,” as nature seemed to be interpreted by the rest of them. Conversely, Gary’s DNA was exactly as God intended, who fashioned the young, budding artist colorblind. A trait that could not be undone. 

Nothing seemed to congeal easily or satisfactorily for Gary except for the sounds that he experienced along 21st street. Even a fun night out in high school to see James Brown perform at the Five Four Ballroom turned into a life-altering macro-lesson. Upon arrival, the concert was already sold-out. Gary chose to stick around so as to “watch and listen” to the outpouring of energy for Mr. Brown overflowing onto the street. With Gary, life was better first digested and analyzed visually and auditorily. Sure enough, “a shootout started to go down.”  As Gary made a bolt for it, a realization occurred that in order to survive in this town he had to be like wallpaper. He needed to blend in.  

Ingratiating himself into gang life provided an element of blending-in and safety early on. But in reality, it was a false sense of security. A misguided belief of protection.  Gangs stuck together proving, surely, the old adage safety in numbers. But gang culture countered what Gary was beginning to figure on his own: It was a lifestyle that enabled and encouraged wrongdoing.  Like drug use. Gary started to sling in High School.  An addiction to heroin and barbiturates ensued, probably factoring in to his chances of getting jumped one night on the way to a party. As he broke free and ran, the diminutive Gary was shot at. A chilling moment when fear, and not just heroin, seeped into his pumped-up veins. He needed an out more than ever. 

Music had always heartened his spirit, inspired him to sing. And if he heard Jackie Wilson (his first live concert in 1958) on the radio or if Jimmy Reed was playing on the jukebox inside The Big Room, Gary believed the music belonged to him.  Others, however, gave him an attitude for thinking so. “Music was territorial back then,” he said, and he was told often enough it wasn’t his music to sing–it was our music, they'd say. As it turned out, only God got in the way of Gary’s singing. He had hoped admission to the local church choir would make for great diversion from life on the streets. His voice wasn’t the problem. At issue was his inability to read the music. The notes on the page–to Gary–were illegible, a mishmash of obscure markings that “rolled and tumbled off the page. He didn't know it at the time, but Gary suffered from dyslexia and was asked to leave the choir. More humiliation. More wondering where to turn. His ineptitude in reading the Gospels and Hymns fell mute on God’s ears. 

The world appeared at odds with Gary Wong–and it caused him great anguish. In an interview, Gary reminisced: “I was always miserable.  His mother often warned him he’d trip over his frowning lower lip because he never smiled. His experiences amounted to lines drawn in the sand dictating a harrowingly narrow bounds. More and more, Gary started seeing himself as an “outlier” on the fringe of L.A.’s already segregated yet burgeoning scene.

Music filled a void that was metastasizing by the day. And perhaps apropos,  it was the Blues in particular, a breed of music that plumbs deep into the well of memory and trauma and beyond, where the most profound of human emotions linger, that Gary gravitated towards most. As Wong was gaining a truer sense of the depths of his own well, rooted in all the agony and struggles and legacies of his past, and despite issues with reading comprehension and color vision deficiency, the young artist would discover new realms of creative expression that enter not through the frontal lobe or any cortex of the brain, but through the primordial pathway of the soul. And the portal by which they become accessible is pure unfiltered emotion. Over time, Wong would develop an arsenal of musical expressions. For one, he can shred on the harmonica, a simple but powerful instrument that responds to selective breathing, blowing, and phraseology with a powerful degree of utterance complementary to sung lyrics. He also learned to play guitar by ear, and, of course, to sing. To hell with the church choir. His blues heroes, Junior Wells and Magic Sam, were long haul players like himself and, like Gary Wong, were full of swagger and stomp. Survivors who sing and play their guts out. 

All the while, there was his two-dimensional art taking shape with his drawings and paintings. On Saturdays, he’d take art classes at the county museum, and during one of his forays into Venice Beach saw the words Art is God Is Love painted on the side of a building. This, he thought, was an attestation, a sign on how to live. The writing was indeed on the wall and those words became his mantra.  His job moving forward was to find his own “visual” to paint and scrawl for others to see. A promising moment decreeing direction and enabling fortitude.  

Intermission

Before delving into his mature painting style, it is important to state some other key moments in his decades-long career that contributed greatly to Mr. Wong’s  oeuvre. A brief summary: 

His first year of community college was cut short due to withdrawal issues. Gary suffered from “the jones.”  By 1963 he was attending the Chouinard Art Institute with fellow Angelenos, Chaz Bojorquez (Señor Suerte), John Van Hamersveld, and Norton Wisdom. He took classes with Emerson Woelffer, a prominent Abstract Expressionist painter who had previously taught at Black Mountain College; and Matsumi Kanemitsu, a master printmaker also affiliated with the AbEx movement. In 1965, Gary married and, subsequently, got involved in protests associated with the Watts Riots (or Watts Rebellion), an important year in the annals of L.A.’s Civil Rights movement that sought an end to Police mistreatment and the rampant discrimination in housing, schooling, and employment. Gary was unable to finish his degree at Chouinard for extended absence following a temporary incarceration. In 1966 he and two fellow Chouinard alums, Terry Allen and Ron Cooper, ran an experimental gallery called GALLERY 66 for half a year. During this time, he also formed his first blues band, The Black Wall Blues Quintet with Terry Allen on drums. 

From its founding in 1967 until 1968, Gary was the MC for Pinnacle Concerts and introduced Los Angeles to some of the most iconic music acts of all time including The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Cream, The Doors, Janis Joplin, The Yardbirds, The Grateful Dead and more. But of particular interest to Gary’s art-life story is the fact that he was responsible for booking all the black acts for Pinnacle: Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, Magic Sam, Albert King, 

Sly and the Family Stone, Ike and Tina Turner Revue, Wilson Pickett Revue, and Charles Lloyd among them. 

In the late 1960’s to Mid 1970’s, Mr. Wong affiliated with PASLA (Performing Arts Society of Los Angeles), directed by Vantile Whitfield who went on to direct the National Endowment for the Arts. 

In the mid 1970’s, Wong participated in collaborative art events organized by Studio Z  (a.k.a. LA Rebellion) the brainchild of David Hammons (whom he first met at Chouinard in the mid 60’s) along with Senga Ngudi, Maren Hassinger, Ronn Davis, Duval Lewis, RoHo, Franklin Parker, Barbara McCullough, Houston Cornwill, and Joe Ray. 

In the 1980’s, Wong worked as an art installer with Cooke’s Crating, and, later in 1988, started his own company, Crate 88, which lasted nearly ten years.

In 1985, a defining event occurred at The Burnside Inn in Los Angeles: During a live jazz session, the MC asked if anyone in the audience could sing some blues. Spurred on by a friend, Gary approached the stage.  When the host asked him his name he paused. At that moment, all his life seemed to flash before him. After a long pause, he replied, “Charlie Chan.  The crowd erupted in laughter.  For Gary, this was no joke. Charlie Chan was the pseudonym used (for contractual reasons) for Charlie Parker on Miles Davis’ 1956, Collectors’ Items album. But so too was it a riff (unintentionally, perhaps) of the poorly aged, Hollywood-cinema stereotype of the wise yet suspicious Chinaman that emerges from the Western frontier mindset, rife with racial picaresques steeped in otherness. Was this the reason they laughed? 

As Wong matured, he began digging deeper into his status as an outsider. His blues portrayal is a complex moving target, deeply mired in politics of identity as well as the pathos and lingo of the music itself, a uniquely American art form that has the power of persuasion and moves those who fall under its spell. Wong understands that the Blues are not just about sadness, or being down and out. They’re about owning all the emotions life yields and putting them at the best advantage to move others. The Blues teaches us what it means to be human. Inadvertently, Gary Wong became a disciple who found a way to school others in the genre’s magical light.   

Act 2

What his eyes lacked in interpreting color, his ears made up for in hearing tone and differentiating nuance in sound. And his dyslexia was compensated with and complemented by an uncanny ability for musical and creative improvisation, both on stage and in the studio. The musicality of sounds first heard and observed from the alcove above 21st street can be seen as his first call and response moment, his tutorial in life’s auditory overtures (God’s signaling)-- in comprehending dissonance, in layering, and in harmonic overtones–where the illogical spontaneity of life’s theater sounded perfectly logical and orchestrated. The alcove sessions became the foundational impetus for his trajectory into a life filled with moving sounds and impactful visions. 

The Roman statesman and philosopher, Marcus Cicero, would have referred to Gary’s paintings as silent poetry. They are the non-verbal, pictorial equivalent of the blues; a visual vernacular of pure expression through feeling life intensely and celebrating that through joy, sadness, or rage. Each stroke of the brush details an emotional gravitas belonging to a poet's ability of transforming the mundane into art.   

We refer now to Wong’s paintings, with a few examples. These are not large works, often on heavy, single-sheet, Arches paper, or canvas, and they provide an incantatory visual effect vis-à-vis the pictorial dissimilation of words and frenetic sentencing that separately (unto themselves) go nowhere in the literal sense but roll and tumble off the page in an E.E. Cummings, creative-license-to-reinvent sense. They are painted writings not dissimilar to a poorly crafted run-on sentence but encapsulate the visual equivalent of euphonic verse purposefully rendered to dizzying effect. They are hypnotic ensembles of mesh, an interlacing of typeface that weaves together the same calligraphic power and melodiousness as a treasured medieval manuscript. The Book of Kells, a masterwork in Western Calligraphy, comes to mind. On that note, Wong’s unique font has some semblance of Chinese Calligraphy (Character Writing) fused with Cholo, a west coast style of gang graffiti perfected by Gary Wong’s contemporary, Chaz Bojorquez, the renowned Godfather of Cholo writing. But especially rare is his natural inclination, his rhythmic fluidity, of writing backwards from left to right–like the Renaissance, left-handed maestro, Leonardo DaVinci. Some habits never die.

These painted works also recall ancient palimpsests encoded with something familiar. Due to their masked readability, they appear rather foreign, distant, yet reverberate an emotional effect that hums and awes. What they lack in color they make up for with vibrations. Here are musings of a Bluesman strumming his brush not between “downstroke” and “upstroke” but by casting words-as-markings more akin to hieroglyphs, pictured across the page in linear, exacting precision. The beat is played symbolically via repetition while harmony enters the picture through overlappings, creating a shadowy, three-dimensionality to the work. Tone and color are more subdued, desaturated and in grayish hues or swaths of pure black (ink) and white (paint). Painted refrain and poetic discernment not dulled or impaired by a blurred retina nor from a dampened cerebral cortex. They are masterworks that pack a punch to the viscera. The ink and paint bleed like residual stains of a crime scene; the paper’s pulp embedded with ethereal evidence lifted from humanity’s morbid existence, cutting like scars across the page yet seem to imply: carry on and move forward: keep strumming, keep rock and rolling. His alphabet soup of cacophony has become his “wow.” 

They are the visionary manifestations of his iconicity. Synesthetic sonatas of dueling modalities. Pure art that, paraphrasing Aristotle, has been concerned not with things as they are, but with things as they might be and ought to be. 

Closing Act (The Epilogue) 

A favorite poem of Gary’s is “Chinese Banalities” by the German artist, Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948). Gary’s comprehension of Schwitters’ work is perfectly logical. A Dadaist painter and writer, Schwitters combines seemingly unrelated elements, themes, and words in his work which allows for the reader to figure out whether or not there's any cohesive meaning. The Dadaists, of course, were all about turning the status quo (politically, socially, culturally) on its head, just as what Gary was arrested for doing in the 1960’s. In the poem, Schwitters writes: 

Even for someone without dyslexia the above can come across as a bit of a mind fuck. But for Gary, the simplest of syntax can read like a complex jig-saw puzzle, scrambled.  He must delve deeper than the rest to comprehend and piece together meaning and to assist in helping decipher his own entangled reality. Overtime, Gary has approached each painting as a clean slate, a new beginning. Each work is another opportunity to start over, beginning to end and back again.  As such, he refers to each blank sheet of paper as “surface zero. And zero is where, philosophically, nothingness and paradise coexist peacefully. A most perfect springboard to approach art with no burden to a finite end, or with an anxiety for its beginning.  

History was once described as “one god-damn thing after the next.” Ulysses S. Grant, to whom those words are attributed, was witness to man’s ultimate brutality and knew full well the exacting toll, the consequences, of what coming out on the other end of battle can do to a man. Surviving is not an easy task. To lay blame, play victim or fade away entirely from engagement are alluring choices, tragically, for many. Thankfully, the universe ordained a select few capable of separating the wheat from the chaff to highlight the magnificence of life. Artists like Mr. Wong, whose marked impressions of the past have become transformational catalysts that over time, through trial, error, and tribulation, are woven flawlessly into rhapsodic eulogies of song and paint. 

Encore

Along with SoCal artists Dave Tourje, Chaz Bojorquez, John Van Hamersveld, and Norton Wisdom, Gary Wong formed a collective art existence under the name California Locos and has exhibited in a number of important exhibitions regularly since 2014.

And in 2019, long after the audience took note of his legitimacy as a Bluesman after having a laugh at his expense in reaction to the introduction of Charlie Chan, Gary Wong and his band, the SOBs, received a Certificate from The City of Los Angeles during the First Watts Festival memorializing him as a Living Legend for his and their commitment to emotional complexity, perseverance, the weaving of experiences–put simply, the Blues. 

                                                                                              —de la Haba

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