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Cantonese Cowboy
JAN WOOLF is sucked into a unique vision of the urban US from the perspective of immigrant and queer communities
Cell Door Slot, 1986, Acrylic on canvas; Prison Bunk Beds, ca. 1988—91 Acrylic on canvas

Martin Wong, Malicious Mischief
Camden Arts Centre

MARTIN WONG (1946–1999) is a free spirit, and Malicious Mischief is peculiar in the good sense; peculiar to something, rather than weird. What he is peculiar to is the queer and immigrant scenes of west and east coast America, with a sort of controlled playfulness. And boy could he paint. 

Some of the figures can seem like Robert Crumb cartoons, and then you see a foreshortened body like one of Michelangelo’s. There’s homage to Peter Blake’s detritus in shop windows. Some clean line painting, and then a scumble of oil paint as delicious as Rembrandt or Bacon. 

But Wong is his own man and paints human life struggling against decay in a money-obsessed America. His textured walls, brickwork and gates are full of the fading hope of people who might have seen America as a second chance, rather than an opportunity for money making. 

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