machado: the death of canadian artist matthew wong reminds us that success doesn't equal happiness

“you know, mom, my mind, i’m fighting with the devil every single day, every waking moment of my life,”  he said . he also used words like “demons” and “melancholy” to describe life inside his head.

wong was a “painter on the cusp of fame,”  according to the new york times , when he died by suicide on october 2, 2019, at the age of 35. shortly before his death, wong was diagnosed with autism.  he also lived with tourette’s syndrome , a disorder that made him a target for severe bullying as a child. he was just 14 when he told his mom that he wanted to kill himself — an admission that led to a diagnosis of clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd) and paranoia.

despite all of this, wong, was a self-taught painter — called  a modern day van gogh by forbes , while  the new york times wrote  that he was “one of the most talented painters of his generation.”

i had the lucky opportunity to see some of wong’s work —  mathew wong: the blue view  — at toronto’s art gallery of ontario this past week. i was so transfixed by the first piece that caught my eye —  starry night  — with its palpably lonely houses, leafless trees and endlessly twinkly, yet cold, dark night skies, that i missed the small square biography written on the wall behind me that said he had taken his own life just over two years ago.

as people mulled around the exhibit, it was easy to tell that they felt it too, voices would drop or fade away completely as both the beauty and despair of each  painting  washed over them. the colour blue was reflective of wong’s life in canada — cold, snowy, nighttime blues coming together with telling titles like  see you on the other side ,  the long way home , and  solitude.  each exuded loneliness and a sense of not belonging — whether through the pair of glasses that sit alone on a night table beside an empty, untouched bed ( untitled) , the white tail of a cat that peeks out from behind a dressing screen ( the cat’s tail ), or the tiny, lone hunched shadow of a wandering man who appears in many of wong’s landscapes.

“he must have been pretty sad,” a woman in a shiny, silver puffer jacket said to her friend incredulously, as they contemplated a particularly blue canvas ( blue view ). she gestured wordlessly, waving a long arm toward all the other blue paintings wordlessly, as if to say, ‘ otherwise, why would he have left all of this ?”

it’s a feeling that prevents the person from seeing possible solutions to their problems,  says clinical psychologist sally spencer-thomas .

don’t we all carry around our own ‘dark room’?

in wong’s case, although those closest to him — for one, his friend brendan dugan, who is also the owner of the new york gallery ( karma ) that represented wong — were aware of his mental health, they admit to not understanding the sheer torment that he had been grappling with, and clearly felt the need to escape.

“that’s the thing that has been the hardest to grapple with, is how unrelated all of that success was to how he actually felt…”  dugan told the globe and mail . “i think that level of pain that he was in, even though we would talk about it, i guess none of us understood.”

maybe. but  according to dr. michael miller , assistant professor of psychiatry at harvard medical school, many people contemplating taking their own life don’t give clues about what they are planning to do.

still, there are things that can put some people at risk of taking their own lives, according to  harvard health , including depression or psychosis, a significant loss, such as the death of a partner, or an illness or medication that triggers a change in mood. and some people knowingly and unknowingly drop hints by talking about suicide (phrases like, “i’d be better off dead”), trying to access things that could be used in a suicide attempt — like a gun or medication, expressing feelings of self-loathing, giving away prized possessions or saying goodbye to family and friends.