Also My Hometown

Also My Hometown: A 30 Year Retrospective of Artwork by Onlie Ong is a comprehensive exhibition of the painting and ceramic practice of artist Onlie Ong.

Beginning in Taiwan, where he studied graphic design, Ong has had a long and varied career. Upon moving to Aotearoa in 1991, he began practising ceramic sculpture, with which he had a successful career and exhibited throughout Australasia. In 2008 he suffered a wrist injury that inhibited him from making ceramics. Instead of ending his art career, he shifted his practice to pursue painting and now creates a new series every year.

Now in his late seventies, Ong continues to use his art to reflect his experience of migration and finding a new sense of place and home in Aotearoa. Ong balances visual themes common in Western surrealism and shan shui (a form of Chinese landscape painting), while capturing the unmistakable scenery of Aotearoa.