The Closest Unknown

I never met my father’s father.

My grandfather.

He passed away well before I was born, leaving behind only a few photographs and no videos or recordings of his voice. Yet he exists in me, his genetic legacy is coursing through my veins, passed down through my father and now extending to my children.

This is a paradox. Someone being simultaneously unknown yet intrinsically part of who I am. I have called this painting series "The Closest Unknown." He is the only grandparent I never met.

So far, I've completed eleven portraits of him, with plans for dozens more. Each time I approach the canvas, something different emerges. I begin with the same limited source material (one of just three precious photographs) but the results are never the same.

Some days, I find myself applying bold strokes in warm hues. Other times, blues and greens dominate the palette. For some I started from a blank white canvas. In others black. The painting i’m working on right now is primarily black and red.

These variations aren't mistakes.

They are revelations.

My current mindset. My emotional state. My evolving understanding. All of these shape how I see and interpret him in that moment.

I wonder, as I paint, which parts of me come from him. When I make a particular gesture or find myself drawn to certain colors, is that somehow his influence? Am I discovering aspects of him through my own artistic choices? Or am I simply projecting my imagination onto a blank space, creating a version of him that never truly existed?

Perhaps it's both. Perhaps that's the point.

With each portrait, I engage in a kind of conversation across time. I'm not just recreating his image; I'm actively constructing my relationship with him. In the absence of memories, I'm creating new ones. These are not memories of actual encounters, but of the process of seeking connection. My grandfather becomes both subject and collaborator in this dialogue.

What fascinates me most is the layered nature of this inheritance. My father carries parts of his father within him. Mannerisms, values, perhaps even ways of seeing the world that he passed to me without either of us fully recognizing their origin.

I have no way to confirm these like I can when I recognize myself in my children. But maybe those mannerisms originated from my grandfather. Or his father before him. And now my children carry this legacy forward, a thread of identity stretching across generations, becoming more diffuse yet never disappearing entirely.

The portraits vary because I vary. Each day I bring different questions to the canvas. Who were you? What would you think of me? Would we have understood each other? The paintings don't answer these questions definitively, but they create a space where such questions can breathe and evolve.

I don't know if I'll ever truly "know" my grandfather. The closest unknown may always remain unknown in certain ways. But through this artistic exploration, I'm discovering that knowing isn't always about facts or direct experience. Sometimes it's about acknowledging the mystery while still seeking connection. It's about recognizing that he exists within me even as I try to bring him into existence through my art.

This Memorial Day I remember my grandfather, Goon Chow Ng, a US Army Veteran, and the other generations of loved ones that make up who I am. These portraits are not just images of my grandfather. They are maps of my own journey to understand him, myself, and the invisible connections that bind us together across time. With each brushstroke, I'm not just painting his face—I'm painting the space between us, that intimate distance where absence and presence somehow coexist.

And perhaps that's the most authentic portrait of all.

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