Jason Wing Street Spirit

The naked child spirit, the spirit of street signs, the wild spirit with horns, with bat wings. The cosmic child with the third eye or dressed up as the phoenix flying through space. Jason Wing’s street spirit is omnipresent in his exhibition of paintings, Street Spirit at Arc One Gallery on Flinders Lane.

Jason Wing uses his background to create in an alchemical mix of influences including Chinese spring festival art, Western street art and Australian aboriginal art. He has then conjured this street spirit from the air, with aerosol and stencils.

Jason Wing is a Sydney artist and art therapist, teaching people with physical and mental disabilities at Tallowood School in Kellyville, New South Wales. He has both a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Sydney College of the Arts) and a Bachelor of Graphic Design (Sydney Graphics College) and his works show an appreciation of both disciplines.

Some of the best images in the exhibition are on old weathered aluminium road signs. The images on the road signs appear playfully contrary to the weathered road sign’s contents. A child spirit grows on a warning sign, hangs on a dandelion flower over a bushfire brigade sign and a red sun face covers a round Uniting Church sign.

The stencil art and aerosol splatter space scenes in Jason Wing’s paintings are also straight from the street. Wing’s stencils are effective and well executed. Most are elegant and balanced compositions but there are a couple of sparse and awkward works or where there spirit flies too close to kitsch. This is not surprising for it is Wing’s first solo exhibition. The ephemeral gallery wall painting (that will be painted over at the end of the exhibition) is another common feature of a street art exhibition.

The street spirit is everywhere, on the back of all the road signs in all the cities of the world. In paste-ups, stickers and stencils. It is playful, wild and anarchic.

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