Wong Sze Wai graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), MFA Program in CUHK. She majored in painting. In her works she focuses on the relationship between memories and imagination. Her artworks highlight the loss of memories and represent the process of recollection in a way of inscription and erasure, which is also known as palimpsest. Wong was first inspired by the ancient Chinese murals in Dunghuang Caves as well as, the murals from the medieval times in Eastern Europe. To reflect how memory and history have been written and erased, Wong applied multi-layered painting techniques and numerous washout processes to her paintings. By means of exploring different types of painting materials in the ancient world, she tried to apply clay, colour and Chinese ink to her artworks. She created her own painting method in order to depict a sense of depth and show traces of time passing.
As for the subject matter, Wong is fascinated by ruin for its metaphorical representation of lost and concealed memories. Ruin has been regarded as a body of memory and history as traces of human activities and changing times fill such abandoned places. She would like to arouse our sensitivity about what we have been forgotten and how do we deal with forgetting. Wong’s artworks provide the audience a space to imagine the history of ruins as well as our own memories.