“A Day in the Life” with Montréal-based Visual Artist Tiffany Wong

Tiffany Wong is an emerging artist based in Montréal, Canada. Her art practice is interdisciplinary and environmentally conscious. Combining painting, textile art and most recently sculptures, she opts for inks and paints that she makes from organic materials and natural earth pigments. Her abstract work uses a vocabulary of line, shape, colour and texture to explore themes of motherhood, childhood, dreams and nature. In 2012, Wong obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in Montreal. Following the birth of her first child in 2018, she began devoting herself full-time to her art practice. As of 2022, she is represented by Wishbone Art Gallery in Montreal. Her work is collected in homes across Canada and the USA.

Tiffany Wong
In my own backyard, collecting plants to boil down into inks.
Tiffany Wong
I love being in the woodshop.
Dried butterfly pea flower that I use a lot to stain and dye my canvas. I will boil down the dried flowers with vinegar and add gum arabic to make a blue-violet ink.
In the studio. I often add the embroidery in last when the painting is almost finished.
Once the weather gets warmer, my husband, the kids and I are out in nature.
I like to keep my hands busy. Even if I’m doing nothing like sitting around watching tv, I punch-needle or embroider something on a small hoop. The embroideries get sewn and glued into a later project.
Tiffany Wong
Opening night of my recent solo show, titled ‘Lullaby of the Sleepless,’ at Wishbone Gallery in Montréal. Photo by: JF Galipeau
Tiffany Wong
Everything is for them.

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Which neighbourhood are you in?

I am from the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood. I’m grateful for the fact that much of Cote-des-Neiges remains ungentrified and that I am exposed to so many diverse cultures and foods every day.

What do you do?

I am a multi-disciplinary artist who started primarily as a painter. My artist practice has grown to include sculpture, textile and fiber art. As a way to reduce my environmental footstep, I use non-toxic art materials and I make inks and paints from natural sources. I am into “reusing” and reducing textile waste and often use discarded toys and textiles outgrown by my children and canvas trimmings from my studio. Beyond the obvious environmentally conscious reasons, I also reuse because I am also interested in the past lives of objects and materials that I transform into art. It’s so interesting to me how much importance an object can have (like my kid’s favourite stuffed animal) before it becomes textile waste. This transformation is the sort of alchemy that has been driving my art practice lately.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, I am working on a body of work that centres around the idea of aether, which is considered the fifth element in medieval and ancient science. For us, it’s basically outer space but for them, it was mystical and their connection to a higher power. The body of work will include more silk paintings, sculptures and fibre art. I will also continue to find ecological ways to make the work as I usually do.

Where can we find your work?

I have a solo show up at Wishbone until May 25th. The pieces on view right now are very special to me and they include paintings on canvas and silk and an installation of mobiles made of repurposed materials. We can find my work on Wishbone Art Gallery where I am represented or on my personal website. Follow @wishboneart and my account @tiffanywlart on Instagram for future events and to follow my art practice!

 

About Emilea Semancik 104 Articles
Emilea Semancik was born in North Vancouver. Emilea has always always wanted to work as a freelance writer and currently writes for the Vancouver Guardian. Taking influence from journalism culture surrounding the great and late Anthony Bourdain, she is a recipe author working towards publishing her own series of books. You can find her food blog on Instagram: