About Matthew Wong

Haliterature.com currently features the photography of Matthew Wong. The artist on his work:

My way of practicing photography goes against the conceptual-minded and heavily staged or digitally manipulated tendencies that have come to dominate most of contemporary art photographic discourse. Typically operating in the manner of Baudelaire’s flaneur, I go about much of daily life simply walking, sometimes with a purpose (i.e., going from one practical destination to another, and in the middle taking a picture if I come across one), but mostly not. Working in this mode without a preconceived idea of what image I will end up with, or even looking for anything in particular when I head out the door, camera always on hand, I then let bodies of images develop organically and intuitively, in which case the entirety of a worldview or particular way of seeing only comes into focus after an extended period of work, from which motifs and themes will emerge from the subconscious. My photography is as much about the act of seeing itself as it is the subject matter in the images. As for the latter, what comes across most evidently is a sense of closeness to the streets in a way that is at once unsentimental but elaborate, circling around ideas of desire, death, and the existential solitude of the photographer forever penetrating into moments at once private yet not wholly unfamiliar. I take a picture of something because I see myself in it.

More of Matt’s work can be seen on his Tumblr.