Ink-blotting with an ink slab onto rice paper - GIF
PROCESS
FORM
LANGUAGE
FEMALENESS
PLACE
American, Queens NY 1976
Ellen Jong is a mixed media artist whose practice is rooted in conceptual interventions often employing methods/materials/subjects of the vernacular and her own personal history. Marked by an upbringing in Queens NY as the third daughter of four girls to medical doctors of Indonesian and Taiwanese origins, she reclaims her identity by way of investigation and experimentation.
Rebellion and paradox are a catalyst to Jong’s practice. She is widely known for her photographic series of self-portraits first exhibited in NYC with Vice Magazine and published into her monograph published by powerHouse Books*. The photographs depict abstracted private and public scenes interrupted by a fluid stream that are of her own urine mostly photographed at arm’s distance throughout her life over eight years. She clarifies she was drawn to go, ‘anywhere but the bathroom.’ The ritualistic performance in her daily life essentially cleared a path to self-discovery, ownership of place and artist statement. In her book, she declares the bodily marks to be ‘existential pee puddles’ and her desire, “to break down the bathroom walls.”
Her most recent work revisits a material from her childhood. The traditional Chinese ink stick was used every weekend for her painting classes from age three to her high school years. She rejected Chinese painting as a practice of her own for most of her young adult life until a trip to Guilin China in 2014.
Revisiting her childhood and even further back into the history of the earliest ink in civilization, she began to make this ink for sculptural and time-based works. The humble material is dynamic, cross-disciplinary and loaded, and transcends body, form and language.
Jong developed her ink during a five-year residency in Upstate NY. She moved to Los Angeles in 2019.
* Pees On Earth by Ellen Jong, powerHouse Books/Miss Rosen Edition 2006
EXHIBITIONS
Solo Show
2015 Sea Bounds, Basement 6 Collective Space, Shanghai, China
2012 Invisible Line, Allegra LaViola Gallery NY
2000 ICUP, Vice Magazine Flagship Store, NY
GROUP SHOW
2019 Every Woman Biennial, LaMaMa Galleria NY
2018 Current: Abortion curated by Barbara Zucker, A.I.R. Gallery NY
2016 The Female Gaze curated by Indira Cesarine, Untitled Space, NY
2015 I Never Could Talk To You, with Bazaar Teens, City Bird Gallery, NY
2014 XXX curated by Mathieu Borysevicz, Bank MABSociety Gallery, Shanghai, China
2011 Self-Publish Be Happy curated by Bruno Ceschel, Micamera Milan, Italy
2011 Art of Affection curated by Caroll Taveras, F.L.O.A.T. Gallery, NY
2009 The Vice Photo Show, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR
2006 Toy Box with White Box, Robert Miller Gallery, NY
2006 Speed Limit, LMCC’s Redhead Gallery, NY
2005 Pretend Friendly curated by Alfredo Martinez, the:artist:network, NY
CURATIORIAL PROJECTS
2015 Daydream Freakout, Gallery Sensei NY
Artists: Andrea Mary Marshall, Christina Kruse, John Gordon Gauld, Nicole Wittenberg, Phil Knott, Sophie Sevigny, Tatyana Murray, Theresa Ortolani, Willy Somma
2005 Cinco! hosted by BlackBook Magazine in partnership with Dos Equis
Artists: Diego Teo, Pia Camil
2002 Signature Series - a permanent installation of 18 curated concept guest rooms, opening reception during Art Basel Miami Beach's inaurguration, The Creek South Beach Miami
Artists: Brendan Carney, Camella Ehlke, Devon Dikeou, Donald Hearn, Hillary Read, Hisako Ichiki, Howard Fonda, The Inkheads, Justin Luke, Justine Harari, Kate Ruth and Brooke Geahan, Kenzo Minami, Kiku and Che Jen, Level Design, Marina Zurkow, Oliver Lutz, Shepard Fairey, UNDO
ART FAIR
2017 Milk and Night curated by Coco Dolle, Spring Break Art Fair NY
2016 Bizarre Teens, Spring Break Art Fair NY
2010 Empire State of Mind, Staldgade 38, Copenhagen Photo Festival, Copenhagen, DK
2009 ArtLog/Manish Vora presents, Pulse Art Fair, Miami, FL
2009 Scope Art Fair, Marketplace, Miami, FL
2008 The New York Photo Festival, DUMBO NY
2005 Experiments at Scope NY, Flatotel Hotel, NY
2005 Open Eat, Curator, Photo NY
SPECIAL PARTICIPATION
2013 The Watermill Center Summer Benefit, The Watermill Center, NY
2013 Whitney Art Party, The Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art, NY
2012 Book presentation, The Hole Gallery Bookshop, NY
2011 MiCamera Bookshop, Self Publish Be Naughty, Milan Italy
2010 Crone Benefit, Gavin Brown Enterprise, NY
REVIEWS
Carlo McCormick, Photograph Magazine July 2012
Vince Aletti, The New Yorker June 2012
Sean O’Hagan, On Photography, The Guardian July 25, 2012
Bruno Ceschel, Foam Magazine Issue #29 Oct 2011
Alec Soth’s Best Photo Books of 2010, 2010
PUBLISHED WORKS/SITATIONS
2015 Self Publish Be Happy by Bruno Ceschel, Aperture Books, NY
2012 Serpent on the Mount, Self-Published proof, NY
2011 Self Publish Be Naughty, Self-Publish Be Happy Publishing, London
2010 Getting To Know My Husband’s Cock, Self-Published, NY (monograph)
2009 Public Panics: Problematic Bodies in Social Places, Adam Eldridge, London UK
2007 Vice Photo Book, Vice Magazine Publishing, NY
2006 Pees On Earth, Miss Rosen Edition/powerHouse Books, NY (monograph)
Ellen Jong © 2020