Press | Phillips

10 June 2021

Phillips to Offer Matthew Wong’s Field in a Dream in New York Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art on 23 June

Phillips to Offer Matthew Wong’s Field in a Dream in New York Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art on 23 June
 

Matthew Wong 1984-2019

Field in a Dream, 2014-2017

Estimate: $1.5-2 million

 

NEW YORK - 10 JUNE 2021 – Phillips is pleased to announce the sale of Matthew Wong’s Field in a Dream in the upcoming 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. On view to the public from 17 June in the new state-of-the-art galleries at 432 Park Avenue, this unique work by Wong will star in the Evening Sale on 23 June at 5pm.

 

Painted between 2014-2017 and depicting a lone figure in a dreamlike field bursting with vegetative life, Field in a Dream captures the chromatic and material vibrance of Matthew Wong’s hypnotic landscapes. Defying laws of gravity and space, the landscape of brilliant flora collapses into a singular plane of the mind. Intermixing Western and Eastern art historical influences, Wong developed a unique painterly sensibility that has redefined the genre of landscape. Evoking the luscious scenes of Gustav Klimt and the expressionist power of Edvard Munch, the present work epitomizes Wong’s mesmerizing treatment of landscape to poignantly explore the subconscious.

 

Matthew Wong

Field in a Dream, 2017

Detailed Image

 

Both in its title and subject matter, the present work embodies the heart of Wong’s practice of using landscape to explore interiority. Here, Wong appears to visually address the Symbolist and Expressionist explorations on interior subjectivity and dreaming. In this lyrical mirage, the figure wanders on an indefinite path in a subliminal, horizonless space crafted by the profuse marks of the artist’s painterly touch that express the landscape of his mind. Wong’s employment of this spatial perspective in the case of this work is particularly impactful by embodying the surreal logic of the dream world—at once atemporal, aspatial, and at times vertiginous and fantastical. 

 

Matthew Wong

River at Dusk, 2018

Achieved $4,871,441 in 2020

A self-proclaimed “omnivore for sights, sounds, and ideas,” Wong was a sensuous painter.  As the artist explained, “None of the works are planned in advance, but rather worked out through an intuitive engagement with the pigment and surface. Therefore, my work can be seen as an existential meditation on the act of painting, painting as a marker of time.”

 

Wong’s works reside in notable public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Esteé Lauder Collection, New York, Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut. Phillips currently holds the world auction record for the artist, achieved last December when Wong’s River at Dusk achieved over $4 million.

 

“I’d like to think of my art practice as an open-ended dialogue between myself and other painters, both living and dead.”

– Matthew Wong

                   

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ABOUT PHILLIPS

Phillips is a leading global platform for buying and selling 20th and 21st century art and design. With dedicated expertise in the areas of 20th Century and Contemporary Art, Design, Photographs, Editions, Watches, and Jewelry, Phillips offers professional services and advice on all aspects of collecting. Auctions and exhibitions are held at salerooms in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong, while clients are further served through representative offices based throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. Phillips also offers an online auction platform accessible anywhere in the world.  In addition to providing selling and buying opportunities through auction, Phillips brokers private sales and offers assistance with appraisals, valuations, and other financial services.

Visit www.phillips.com for further information.

 

*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.

 

PRESS CONTACTS:            

NEW YORK – Magda Grigorian, Chief Communications Officer      mgrigorian@phillips.com           +1 212 940 1384         

NEW YORK – Jaime Israni, Public Relations Director, Americas     jisrani@phillips.com                  +1 212 940 1398

 

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