Brent Wong


Brent Wong is a New Zealand surrealist painter and music composer.

Early life

Originally from Ōtaki, Wong's family moved to Wellington in 1949, where he has subsequently lived. As a child, he had difficulty reading, which led him towards drawing as an alternative means of self-expression.

Art career

Wong's first solo exhibition was in 1969 at the Rothmans Gallery in Wellington when he was 24. The exhibition "excited extravagant critical attention: and overnight established the previously unknown Brent Wong as an important painter in the local context."