Flo Oy Wong (; born October 28, 1938)
is an American artist, curator, and educator, of Chinese-descent. She had co-founded the
Asian American Women Artists Association
Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) is a nonprofit arts organization that supports and promotes the work of Asian American women artists in the visual, literary, and performing arts through activities such as art events, lectures, ar ...
(AAWAA) in San Francisco.
Biography
Flo Oy Wong was born on October 28, 1938, in
Oakland, California
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
.
Wong was granted a Bachelor of Arts in English from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
in 1960, qualifying as a teacher at
California State University, Hayward
California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post-baccala ...
a year later. Her intent was initially to teach high school students, but she found that it was more enjoyable to teach small children, and focused on a career doing that; this ended when she had her own children and left the teaching profession.
Wong began studying art in 1978, attending
DeAnza College until 1980 followed by a stint at
Foothill College
Foothill College is a public community college in Los Altos Hills, California. It is part of the Foothill–De Anza Community College District. It was founded on January 15, 1957, and offers 84 Associate degree programs, 2 Bachelor's degree p ...
until 1982. In 1989, she co-founded the Asian American Women Artists Association with
Betty Nobue Kano
Betty Nobue Kano (born in 1944) is a Japanese painter, curator and lecturer at San Francisco State University and New College of California, teaching the 332 Japanese American Art and Literature class. She is notable for exhibiting her work in near ...
,
Moira Roth
Moira Roth (née Moira Shannon; 1933–2021) was an English-born American art historian, feminist art critic, and educator.
Early life and education
She was born as Moira Shannon on July 24, 1933, in London, and raised in Cornwall, England ...
, and
Bernice Bing
Bernice Bing (10 April 1936 – 18 August 1998) was a Chinese American lesbian artist involved in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene in the 1960s. She was known for her interest in the Beats and Zen Buddhism, and for the "calligraphy-inspi ...
. In 1990 she and
Jan Rindfleisch
Jan Rindfleisch (1942–2025) was an American artist, educator, author, curator, and community builder. Rindfleisch is known for the programming she initiated and oversaw at the Euphrat Museum of Art; for her book on the history of art communities ...
curated the exhibition ''Families: Rebuilding, Recreating, Reinventing'' at the
Euphrat Museum of Art, This exhibition featured artwork by other notable Asian American Artists:
Terry Acebo Davis
Terry Acebo Davis (born 1953) is a Filipino American artist and nurse based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her art is thematically linked to her family and her origins as a Filipino American.
Early life and education
Born in Oakland, California ...
,
Kim Anno
Kim Anno (born December 19, 1958) is a Japanese-American artist and educator. She is known for her work as an abstract painter, photographer, and filmmaker. Anno has served as a professor, and as the chair of the painting department at the Cal ...
, Lucy Arai,
Lenore Chinn, DIWA Arts & Anna Wong. These artists, whose work was already known in the Asian American artistic communities, would later reciprocate by including Oy-Wong's work in other political and identity exhibitions they curated at other SF Bay Area venues during that dynamic period. Flo two years later was given the Art and the Needs of Children and Youth Award. In 1995, Wong given an award by the
Women's Caucus for Art
The Women's Caucus for Art (WCA), founded in 1972, is a non-profit organization based in New York City, which supports women artists, art historians, students, educators, and museum professionals. The WCA holds exhibitions and conferences to promo ...
, and served as a visiting scholar at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison
A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...
. In 1997 she was awarded fellowships by both the Arts Council of Santa Clara and the Nebraska Arts Council.
In 2000 her piece ''made in usa: Angel Island Shhh'' was installed at the
United States Immigration Station, Angel Island
Angel Island Immigration Station was an immigration station in San Francisco Bay which operated from January 21, 1910, to November 5, 1940, where immigrants entering the United States were detained and interrogated. It is estimated that some 10 ...
, where between 100,000 and 175,000 Chinese immigrants had been detained, influenced by the experiences of her mother and mother-in-law who had immigrated from China. She has also created other works exploring Asian American history and experience, including ones about Wen Ho Lee and Japanese internment camps. In 2008, the Asian American Pacific Islander Cultural Center honored Wong by presenting an exhibition showcasing her work: ''70/30; Seventy Years of Living, Thirty Years of Art.''
In 2013 she hosted an exhibition at the
Luggage Store Gallery
The Luggage Store Gallery, also known as 509 Cultural Center, is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary arts organization founded in 1987, and has two venues located in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The organization has sp ...
celebrating her 75th birthday, which featured works by Moira Roth and Wong's sister,
Nellie Wong
Nellie Wong (born 12 September 1934) is an American poet and activist for feminist and socialist causes. Wong is also an active member of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women.
Biography
Wong was born in Oakland, California to Chinese ...
. In 2018, she published a book, ''Dreaming of Glistening Pomelos'', for her 80th birthday.
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wong, Flo
American artists of Chinese descent
De Anza College alumni
UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni
California State University, East Bay alumni
1938 births
Living people
Foothill College alumni