Local Art Talk: Evri Kwong and the Chinese Railroad Strike

Posted by on 03 May 2023

The San Rafael Public Library is honored to present the artist, Evri Kwong, and his latest project: The Chinese Railroad Strike. Regular library patrons may recognize Evri as a familiar face in the library, working near the upstairs service desk. Evri is a native of Chinatown, a graduate of SF Art Institute, and professor. Read more about him here.

This event will be held at the San Rafael City Council Chambers, across the street at City Hall. Please note that there is no food or drink allowed in Council Chambers.

Artist Evri Kwong was born in San Francisco and raised in the Bay Area. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute where he received a BFA and MFA in Drawing and Painting. During graduate school, Kwong was awarded a full fellowship to study at the prestigious Skowhegan School Of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant for Painting. Currently, he teaches at California College of the Arts in San Francisco as an adjunct professor in drawing and painting.

Kwong’s work is in numerous public and private institutions, most recently: de Young Museum in 2021, San Jose Museum of Art, Asian American Art Centre (NYC), The Lannan Foundation (Santa Fe, NM), Hana Bank in South Korea, Rene Di Rosa Preserve (Napa, CA), Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), Stanford University Hospital, Haggerty Museum, Djerassi Foundation, (Woodside, CA), deSaisset Museum (Santa Clara, CA).

His work has been written up in international magazines and newspapers and sighted in the book Asian American Primary Source Reader (2017, Yale Press) for a painting he made about Vincent Chin. He also appeared in the documentary film “Smitten” by filmmaker Nancy Kelly on the Rene Di Rosa Art Collection in Napa, CA.

“I am not a political artist. I am just an artist responding to the time we are living in.”
– Evri Kwong

Evri Kwong’s work has been featured in group and solo exhibitions across the country and abroad, including: Catharine Clark Gallery, SF; George Krevsky Gallery, SF; de Young Museum, SF; Southern Exposure Gallery, SF; Heidi Cho Gallery, NYC; Asian American Art Centre, NYC; Alternative Museum, NYC; David Beitzel Gallery, NYC; Track 16 Gallery, LA; Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica; Dwight-Hackett Projects, Santa Fe, NM; Gerald Peters Gallery Project Space, Santa Fe, NM; San Jose Museum Of Art; Triton Museum Of Art; Museum Of Sonoma County; Crocker-Kingsley Museum of Art; Rene Di Rosa Preserve, Napa; Lancaster Museum Of Art, PA; deSaisset Museum, Santa Clara; Gallery Godo, S. Korea, among others.