Alvin Ong paints the human experience with a winter soup like thickness. It's like all the things you want to see and the surprises of emotional release all in one place. It's life, it's the queer experience, and it's cinema. What I have loved about Alvin Ong's paintings over the years and Sayang at Anat Ebgi captures the same feeling is that a scene extends into the metaphysical. The perspectives bend but don't break, the rooms fill and yet you aren't sure if anyone is quite there together or in their own realm. Evasive is a word that comes to mind, but perhaps not to the viewer but to the other characters themselves. It makes you ponder your own behavior in a social setting, how much you pay attention, how much you need attention or just to be lost in the crowd. They are powerful examples of the current world we live in. —Evan Pricco