Installation view, Fong Chung-Ray: Meditations in Abstraction

Fong Chung-Ray: Meditations in Abstraction
Closing Saturday, December 20, 2025
120 East 65th St, NYC

Don’t miss Fong Chung-Ray: Meditations in Abstraction, the artist’s first New York exhibition and a six-decade survey at Alisan Fine Arts, celebrating his distinctive synthesis of Western modernism and Asian aesthetics. This landmark presentation marks a new chapter in the gallery’s long-standing commitment to advancing cross-cultural dialogue in modern and contemporary art.

Fong Chung-Ray 馮鍾睿 (b. 1934) is a seminal figure in Chinese abstraction and a founding member of the Fifth Moon Group. Bridging Eastern philosophy and Western modernism, his practice was shaped by training in Taiwan and later influenced by Abstract Expressionism during his Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in the United States. Fong developed an experimental visual language that merges the gestural energy of American painting with the contemplative sensibility of Chinese calligraphy.

His innovations include the creation of a coarse palm-fiber brush in the 1960s, the use of acrylic to emulate ink, and the development of a unique “reverse rubbing” transfer technique—producing richly textured, time-worn surfaces reminiscent of weathered walls and ancient manuscripts. Since the 1980s, Fong has incorporated Buddhist sutras into his compositions, transforming sacred text into meditations on form, formlessness, and impermanence.

Born in Henan, China, and based in San Francisco since 1975, Fong has lived through cultural shifts that profoundly shaped his artistic identity. As a member of the influential Fifth Moon Group, a Rockefeller Foundation fellow, and a lifelong Buddhist practitioner, he has continually expanded the language of abstraction while remaining rooted in Eastern heritage.

To learn more, click here.