Artist-in-residence Chelsea Ryoko Wong opened her year-long Oakland Museum of California installation “Ancestral Visions” during a Lunar New Year celebration in which she said wanted to make the work—five paintings inspired by 20th century Chinese-style silk dresses—“as Asian” as it could possibly be.
In a gallery talk on Feb. 8 with OMCA Senior Curator Carin Adams, Wong said the 10 traditional dresses (called qipao or Mandarin gowns), donated by Chinese American women and drawn from the museum’s collection, represented their owners’ desire to stay true to their roots.
Speaking in front of the turquoise, pink, yellow and violet-hued installation, which is on view through Feb. 1, 2026, Wong said the dresses, which hang in an enclosed case, weren’t simply practical clothing. They also were a subtle pushback against full assimilation. Each garment, an intricate masterwork of handmade silk and satin, was its owner’s bold statement to be “very, very Chinese” in the face of Eurocentric conditioning to do the opposite.
The dresses are a recurring motif in the installation’s large acrylic paintings (made in 2024 and 2025) which, though characterized by a one-dimensional style, convey depth. As the women wear the dresses in scenes from everyday life in the paintings, museum officials suggest that the installation invites viewers to think about how people express their identity through clothing, and how there are “personal histories embedded in the garments.”
“Bending Light” is a family portrait of sorts, with the subjects near a body of water; “Life’s Full Circle” depicts patrons in a Chinese restaurant; four mahjong players wear the dresses in “Here on Earth”; women shoppers on a street wear them in “Chasing Dreams,” and they’re seen at the beach in “Unwavering Love.”
The installation’s walls and neon lights are of similar colors as the paintings, and the floor is covered with red carpeting. When a youngster asked Wong what role color played in her work, she said she wanted to associate each color with a feeling (though she didn’t specify which) and wanted each shade to be balanced so that no one hue dominated.
“I tend to take two contrasting colors, then add a third to make it work,” said Wong, a San Francisco resident who earned a fine arts degree in printmaking from California College of the Arts in Oakland and has created murals for Asana, La Cocina and the Facebook AIR Program in San Francisco.
Though there aren’t many primary colors in the installation’s paintings, the collection of different shades stands out best once one is aware of Wong’s intentions. The mahjong game of “Here on Earth” features four players of different complexions (possibly different ethnicities?) and ages (signified by their hair colors) against a backdrop that fades light green into yellow to evoke a sunset. Nothing feels out of place.
The restaurant of “Life’s Full Circle” has a similar red floor to the installation’s carpet, possibly the darkest color in the collection. The painting’s depiction of children pulling their parents around the restaurant is as amusing as it is instantly recognizable.
What makes “Ancestral Visions” work best is how Wong, with such a simplistic style, makes the seemingly monotonous mesmerizing. The illustrations are little more than colored-in sketches of everyday events, yet the way she depicts them forces the viewer to focus in a way that adds color to the normal “monochrome” elements of life.
Most importantly, Wong finds beauty in ethnically specific life in the face of a world that tried very hard to erase it. She ended the talk saying the show was a testament to clashing cultures.
“Ancestral Visions” will be on display through Feb. 1, 2026 at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$19, free for ages 12 and under at museumca.org.
Charles Lewis III is a San Francisco-born journalist and performing artist. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, KQED and the San Francisco Examiner. Dodgy evidence of this can be found at The Thinking Man’s Idiot.wordpress.com.
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