Dream Land Aotearoa: A 30 year retrospective of artwork by Onlie Ong

Dream Land Aotearoa: A 30 year retrospective of artwork by Onlie Ong

7 December 2024 – 25 January 2025
3 Victoria Road, Devonport

Image Credit: One Tree Island, acrylic on canvas, 2015. Image courtesy of Onlie Ong.  

About the Exhibition

Dream Land Aotearoa: A 30 year retrospective of artwork by Onlie Ong continues on from Also my hometown as 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.

Dream Land Aotearoa: A 30 year retrospective of artwork by Onlie Ong is supported by Creative New Zealand and Foundation North.