Artist Statement

These paintings feature idiomatic phrases and colloquialisms from the Toisan and Cantonese Chinese dialects. The calligraphy, though resembling Chinese, is actually written with an invented phonetic system. Written Chinese is notoriously an exercise in memorization, with no alphabet. The orthography is primarily logographic, specifying unique characters for each word. This system has the advantage of maintaining readability across mutually unintelligible dialects and languages, though with the consequence that written words don’t necessarily reflect how people speak. I selected characters based on dialect pronunciations to form an abugida, a system where consonant vowel sequences are written in a single unit.

I begin paintings by preparing paper on a flat surface, writing phrases in traditional Chinese characters, then obscuring them under characters from this abugida. Then I emboss the combined traditional+invented characters by outlining their amalgamated form using a hard leaded pencil. There are no phrases to be focused on, as hundreds have been written and buried into the paintings. I pursued these methods to convey my sensibility about the fragmentation of my own cultural background, as I approach Chinese calligraphy from the perspective of language loss. These works are part of an ongoing process to relearn Toisan and Cantonese, and ultimately to ensure that I participate in them continuing to be living languages.

In many Chinese diaspora communities, it is still common to maintain an ancestral shrine featuring tablets with the names of ancestors, spirits, and personally meaningful phrases. These are called San Pai Ji. These paintings share that title, in veneration of this language that so specifically points to an epicenter of emigration, and the thousands of untold stories within it’s vernacular domain.

Artist Bio

黃兼鋒 (Wong Gim Fong) | Kevin Balcora

Born in Oakland California in 1987. Balcora creates textured paintings featuring atmospheric formations of dissolving calligraphy set against weathered textures and embossed logographs. His technical foundation is in drawing, and the practice of rendering curvature in line strokes. This preoccupation carried over into the world of graffiti, abstracting orthography into new unreadable forms. These early subconscious pursuits cultivated skills that, years later, became the crucial foundation for working in Chinese calligraphy.

Balcora grew up in the Oakland hills and in East Oakland. These two environments, within 5 miles of each other, provided formative experiences witnessing stark economic and social divisions. Early in his life, vernacular was a consistent object of scrutiny. Identity and authenticity were apparent in one’s dialect. This eventually led to an examination on the origin of his family, their village dialect, and the history surrounding them. When he began studying Cantonese, a professor informed him that his pronunciation was in fact Toisan Dialect.

Balcora created a system for notating Toisan by combining traditional characters based on their dialect pronunciation. Though care has been taken to demonstrate comprehension and execution of traditional calligraphic forms, the words are unreadable to native speakers. Inspiration for creating this system initially came from seeing Xu Bing’s Square Word Calligraphy and Gu Wenda’s gu Script. Their work led towards research into writing systems, exposing him to fascinating historical scripts and linguistic concepts. The unique orthographies of Old-Uyghur, Mongolian, Phags-Pa, Manchu, Tangut , Tibetan, Nushu, Sawndip and Siddham have been concurrent systems for writing in China at various points in History.

In Chinese painting there is a tradition of studying the brushwork of past masters so as to develop a personal style through comprehension. In his work, he attempts to incorporate a sense of time and history as a component of this comprehension. Combining cursive forms and seal script like impressions, with character strokes truly derived from graffiti. Large installations of his work have been featured at SOMArts gallery in San Francisco and American Steel Studios in Oakland. The development of the Toisan orthographic system is ongoing, and he continues to live and work from Oakland.

lie2meharder@gmail.com

Exhibition History

Vessel Gallery

“Excuse Me Can I see You ID: Part Two“

Group Show

2021

Bridge Art Space - Richmond 

“Perspectives”

With Kwadwo Otempong

2019

SOMArts Cultural Center - San Francisco

“Diasporic Alchemy”

Group Show

2018

Cibo Cafe and Art Gallery - Sausalito

“Life Like Sentences”

Solo show

2017

The Laundry - San Francisco

“The Art of Dying Virtual + Augmented Reality Show”

Group show

2017

American Steel Studios - Oakland

“Works on Paper”

Group Show 

2016