“My art is symbolic of this country’s multiple canons. My work is significant because it inserts little-known chronicles into the cultural landscape. Influenced by the contemporary artists, Faith Ringgold, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Joseph Cornell, I make art that speaks of personal, family, community, cultural, and historical stories. To retrieve these narratives I interview people that I find heroic in order to explore disquieting matters that transform me and viewers to a place of healing, connecting, and understanding. I use cloth rice sacks, sequins, beads, old suitcases, scanned photographs, magazine text, Chinese funeral paper, flags of the United States, needle, and thread to create my mixed-media installations. In acknowledgement of my identity as an American of Chinese descent I frequently use Chinese and English text in my work.”

— FLO OY WONG

ASIAN RICE SACK SERIES

The various bodies of work – Eye of the Rice: Yu Mai Gee Fon, Baby Jack Rice Story, I Don’t Know Where the Chinese Cook Lived, Kente Rice Women: Talking Our Connection, made in usa: Angel Island Shhh, Kindred Spirit and others – which make up the Asian Rice Sack Series, refer to individual and collective narratives about the Chinese diaspora in America.

made in usa: Angel Island Shhh

2003	Tin See Do: The Angel Island Experience, Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York (in conjunction with Gateway to Gold Mountain exhibition)*
2001 – 2002	Flo Oy Wong: Angel Island, Immigration, and Family Stories, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA*
2001	On Gold Mountain, Presenter: Autry Heritage Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.
2001	Angel Island and Immigration Stories of the 20th and 21st Centuries, Euphrat Museum of Art, De Anza College, Cupertino, CA
2000	made in usa: Angel Island Shhh, Angel Island Immigration Station*

Baby Jack Rice Story

The Baby Jack Rice Story (1993-1996) retrieves the memories of Flo’s husband, Edward K. Wong’s childhood in Augusta, Georgia during segregation.

Kindred Spirit

2004	Connections/Disconnection: Shredding Lives, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA*
2001 – 2002	Flo Oy Wong: Angel Island, Immigration, and Family Stories, Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, CA*
2002	Thread: Five Artists Who Use Stitching to Convey Ideas, Berkeley Art Center Association, Berkeley, CA

Eye of the Rice: Yu Mai Gee Fon

1997	On The Rim, TransAmerica Corporation, San Francisco, CA Contemporary Fiber Art, Sesnon Art Gallery, Porter College, UC Santa Cruz, CA
1996	Subversive Domesticity, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, KS
1995	Tell Me a Story, Women’s Caucus for Art Exhibition, Fourth International Women’s Conference, Huairou, People’s Republic of China
1993	Rice Story, Eye of the Rice: Yu Mai Gee Fon Installation, IDEA Gallery, Sacramento, CA

SUITCASE SERIES

The Suitcase Series comprised of My Mother’s Baggage: Lucky Daughter, My Mother’s Baggage: Paper Sister/Paper Aunt/Paper Wife, and 1942: Luggage From Home To Camp tell stories of cultural intersections resulting from Chinese and Japanese immigration to the United States.

Luggage From Home To Camp

2003	1942: Luggage From Home to Camp, Japanese American Museum San Jose, San Jose, CA*

My Mother’s Baggage: Paper Sister/Paper Aunt/Paper Wife

2001 – 2002	The Angel Island Immigration Experience – made in usa: Angel Island Shhh, San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA
2001	Sugar ‘N Spice‘N Everything Nice, ProArts Gallery, Oakland, CA
2000	Both Sides+: Family Stories, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA
1998	Multiple Exposures, Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA

My Mother’s Baggage: Lucky Daughter

1999	Celebrating American Family Life, U. S. State Department Art in Embassies Program, United States Embassy, Copenhagen, Denmark
1997	Art of the Americas: Identity Crisis, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA
1996	A Case for Art, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

JOSS PAPER SERIES

1992	Bitter Melon Rice Blues: Elegy for America
1996	Rice for My Ancestors
1997	District Six: A Memory

Drawings — Oakland Chinatown Series

The Oakland Chinatown Series (1983- 1991) is a body of 35 autobiographical narrative graphite drawings of Flo Oy Wong’s family in Oakland Chinatown from the 1940s to the 1960s.