Who gets to paint what?
Growing up in South Carolina and Tennessee in the 1970s and early 1980s, the world
outside her home largely did not look like Cecilia Wong Kaiser. Nor did the celebrated
pictures of people she saw on television or in magazines – let alone in painted portraits.
Seeing and believing that these were the only images fit to be the subjects of art, she
drew what she saw.
Join us on October 18, 2022, from 5 to 7 pm, to hear Cecilia Wong Kaiser talk about the
question that stunned her 12-year-old self and her 40-year long answer to that question,
as she shows how her work has evolved and discusses how it is both a quiet challenge
to static notions of identity and an assertion of her right to choose what, and how, she
paints.
Seats are limited, so please RSVP ahead of time. This event is held at no charge.
Bio:
Born in Mudon, Burma (Myanmar), Cecilia Wong Kaiser spent most of her childhood in
Nashville, Tennessee, and now lives and works in Rancho Santa Fe, California. She
received her A.B. from Brown University (double honors in Visual Art and Creative
Writing); her A.A.S. in fashion design, magna cum laude, from the Fashion Institute of
Technology, State University of New York; and her J.D. from the University of California,
Davis, King Hall School of Law. While obtaining her Bachelor of Arts degree, she also
studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, and the
University College London. At Brown, she was awarded the Roberta Joslin Prize for
Excellence in Art, as well as the Art Purchase Prize. Over the last thirty years, she
interned for two fashion design houses in London; worked as a buyer for a chain of
specialty stores in the Southeastern United States; served as a law clerk for the United
States District Court, Eastern District of California; taught law at the Heinrich Heine
Universität Düsseldorf; practiced law in New York City; and retired from law practice to
be a full-time mom. More recently, as a Guide for the San Francisco Museum of Modern
Art, she was inspired to return to painting.
Cecilia draws with paint, and she paints to remember. After the last several bruising
years, when the importance of painting celebrations of everyday life became more
urgent, she started memorializing the sun-filled snapshots of living here and now that
might otherwise go unremembered. She likes to think of her paintings as love letters of
and to people and places special to her.