Born in 1934 in Nanyang, China, Fong Chung-Ray moved to Taiwan 1949. In the 1960s, he became a key member of the Fifth Moon Group, who represented a new wave of modernist art in Taiwan. In 1971, Fong was awarded a grant by the John D. Rockefeller III Foundation, enabling him to travel across Europe and the United States. His exposure to Western art during that time shaped his aesthetic sensibilities, leading him to his original abstract visual language that draws from both the Chinese ink tradition and modern Western art. Shortly after his stint abroad, Fong immigrated to the US, settling in the San Francisco Bay Area where he has been based since Fong’s early works are characterized by loose forms painted freely with ink, acrylics and watercolors using coarse palm leaves tied into a brush. Over the last three decades, however, Fong has increasingly used collage to create his art, developing an unorthodox technique where acrylic is applied onto thin sheets of plastic to produce patterns that are then transferred onto paper or canvas. He also often incorporates Chinese calligraphy as visual elements in these collages. The resulting layers give rich textures to his works. Alisan Fine Arts will be mounting Fong Chung-Ray’s first New York City exhibition in October, 2025.
