Sylvia Wong spent over 2 decades as a music educator mentoring a generation of young pianists. It was during her last year as a visual art student of Emily Carr University of Art and Design that she came to realize she has an innate passion for printmaking. This unexpected self-discovery together with a series of synchronistic events that followed afterwards propelled her to dissolve her career in piano teaching in order to engage in the full pursuit of a creative career in the visual arts.

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As of now, it is her endeavor to examine and depict the continuously changing truth in nature as well as man’s inner landscape. Her works are rather personal orchestrated invitations for her audience to engage in an intimate dialogue with her. Her images are often abstract like music, yet they interact and resonate with the landscape in order to convey a certain feeling, sensation or idea.  

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Printmaking has been her main medium, but to dazzle with traditional printmaking techniques has not been her focus. Sylvia’s art ranges from work-on-paper, bookworks, sumi-ink and brushwork to experimental-mixed medium sculptural print constructions and print installations. Urban Warriors was a body of work that allowed her to push the boundaries of printmaking, painting, and sculpture. She is particularly drawn to the process of preparing multilayered textured collagraph plates, and “drawing” by cutting. Assembling and reassembling the matrixes is the reflection of her creative energy. The printmaking process allows her to leave multiple traces of that energy behind on paper, an extremely gratifying way for her to record her sense of existence. She believes creating is an avenue that leads to approaching poetry with oneself and it offers permission for oneself towards self- preservation.

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As a Canadian-born Chinese, Sylvia fuses and filters her bicultural background in her art-making.  Unlike many artists of Chinese origin residing in Canada who suffer a sense of lost with their cultural heritage, she does not have a need or the longing to reconstruct her cultural identity.  Her art stands as an aesthetic bridge between two cultures.  She chooses to explore the subtle nuances and to celebrate the essence of her cultural hybrid through her artistic creations.

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Sylvia earned her M.Ed. from Simon Fraser University, a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto.  She has been exhibiting in solo and group shows locally, including the Richmond Art Gallery, the Mezzanine Gallery, the Malaspina Printmakers Society, Dundarave Print Workshop and Gallery, North Van Community Art Center, and the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Center.  Her works have also shown nationally and internationally in juried exhibitions and exchanges.