Gallery Chats Special Guests: Artist, Chelsea Ryoko Wong and OMCA Senior Curator of Art, Carin Adams

In honor of OMCA’s 24th annual Lunar New Year celebration, please join us for a very special edition of Gallery Chats led by Bay Area artist Chelsea Ryoko Wong and OMCA Senior Curator of Art Carin Adams. As OMCA’s 2024 Harker Fund Artist-in-Residence, Wong will share about the inspiration and process for developing her exciting new installation in the Gallery of California Art, Ancestral Visions. 

Wong’s work, being both a creative reimagining of the past and a fantastical nod to the present, is inspired by textiles from the OMCA collection. Wong’s research focused on the wardrobes, photographs, and ephemera of seven 20th century Chinese American women—Rose Setzo, Sophia Chang Wong, Grace Dea, Lei Kim Lim, Sun Fung Lee Wong, and Chop Chin Chum.  This unique project will include Wong’s iconic colorful paintings in an immersive environment that will showcase the dresses the women wore known as qipao or cheongsam, as well as illuminate what is known of their lives.

During the Lunar New Year Celebration, our regular Gallery Chats Facilitators will also be available to engage in conversation in our Galleries of California Art, History, and Natural Science from 1 to 3 pm.
Ancestral Visions will be on view until February 1, 2026. This residency is supported by the Harker Fund Artist Residency Program.

Facilitator Bio

Chelsea Ryoko Wong  (b. 1986, Seattle, WA) is a painter and muralist known for vibrant, joyful celebrations of community, ritual, and seasonality. Inspired by Northern California and international travels, the scenes in Wong’s paintings are infused with fantasy, humor, and imagination. Translating her printmaking background to the realm of painting, Wong’s paintings are composed through a meticulous layering of form and figure. 

Wong attended Parsons School of Design, New York and received her BFA in printmaking from California College of the Arts. She is the first recipient of the Hamaguchi Emerging Artists Fellowship award at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley and was a 2022 finalist for SFMOMA’s esteemed SECA Art Award. She has participated in recent group exhibitions at the de Young, San Francisco; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Creativity Explored, San Francisco, CA; Chinese Cultural Center, San Francisco, CA; and Bolinas Museum, CA. She has completed large-scale mural projects in San Francisco at Asana; La Cocina; Facebook Artist in Residence Program; and the Asian Art Museum. She was awarded the Harker Fund Residency in 2024 and will present a solo exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California in February 2025. Her work has been acquired by institutional and private collections including the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, and Bolinas Museum, CA. Wong lives and works in the Mission District of San Francisco.

Accessibility

Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) is committed to providing programs that are accessible, welcoming, and inclusive of our community. Wheelchairs, sensory inclusive devices, and additional amenities are available for checkout on a first come, first served basis at the Ticketing Desk. To request other accommodations, like American Sign Language (ASL), Cantonese, Spanish or another language interpreter, please email [email protected] at least three weeks before the event. Learn more about our accessibility options.