PROCESS
FORM
DISRUPTION
PLACE
I de/reconstruct ideas into images and scenes that represent me. The body and anti-body are a recurring theme in my work for over two decades. My new work in sculptural ink uses an organic material that touches on my personal history, heritage and my complex desire to disrupt and transcend. It is experimental, cross-disciplinary and fluid. In recent years I am grappling with rehabilitating from personal, social and political anxiety, addiction and body issues. The possibility of the ink material derived from the traditional Chinese ink stick to be manipulated and molded into non-traditional forms and ultimately completing themselves in nature is a philosophical, spiritual and self-realized process that negotiates with my place in this world. It is cathartic. The material doesn't lie.
I was born in Queens, NY to an Indonesian-Chinese dad and Taiwanese mother. Both began their medical practices while instilling a strong sense of oddness in me, the third of four girls, in our mixed Asian-American home in a dominantly middle-class Jewish neighborhood. When all my friends had bat/bar mitzvahs and I didn't, the oddness set in. Language at home was Mandarin, Taiwanese, Indonesian, Japanese and English, and listening, watching and breathing in the scenes while in line for an Italian pizza slice, driving past Knish Knosh on Queens Boulevard on the way to weekly violin lessons, running through the aisles of the Chinatown art supply shop, gazing too close to the television after everyone went to sleep, and out of the blue, hustling to join my parents for late night tea and cake at The Plaza Hotel, then returning home in the car watching the seductive skyline recede behind me. Feeling odd and a lot of mysteries to unravel...a lot of potential to manifest.
I'm the author of the photographic monograph Pees On Earth (Miss Rosen Edition/ powerHouse Books 2006) - eight years of claiming my body and place while peeing on Earth. In 2010, I self-published my second photographic monograph Getting to Know My Husband's Cock, featured in aperture Books' Self Publish Be Happy by Bruno Ceschel, and will be included in the upcoming academic publication Radical Intimacy in Contemporary Art: Abjection, Revolt and Objecthood by Keren Moscovitch Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023. It was the subject of my solo show at Allegra LaViola Gallery, now Sargeant's Daughters, in 2011. Vince Aletti reviewed the exhibition of prints in The New Yorker, "it's her unapologetic lust that comes across most appealing here."
New sculptural work in ink began in Shanghai, China in 2014, developed in Upstate NY and continues in Los Angeles where I have a studio in DTLA. I moved to LA in late 2019.
ELLEN JONG
(b. 1976 American, NY)
SOLO SHOW
2015 Sea Bounds, Basement 6 Collective Space, Shanghai, China
2012 Invisible Line curated by Amani Olu, Allegra LaViola Gallery NY
2000 I.C.U.P, Vice Media Flagship Store on Cleveland Pl, NY
SELECTED GROUP SHOW
2021 Five Minutes To Live curated by Benjamin Tischer, New Discretions, NY
2020 The Empty Gallery Group Show 5 curated by Scott Ogden, Shrine Gallery, NY
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
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
ART FAIR
2017 Milk and Night curated by Coco Dolle, Spring Break Art Fair NY
2016 Bazarre Teens, curated by Dustin Yellen, 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
SPECIAL PARTICIPATION
2022 Impact: LA for Choice and W.R.R.A.P Benefit on Artsy, Anat Ebgi Gallery, LA
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 Presentation, 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
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)
CURATORIAL 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: Abe Atri, Pia Camil, Carlos Alvaro Montero, Yoshua Okon, Diego Teo
2002 Signature Series - a permanent installation of 18 concept guest rooms, opening
reception during Art Basel Miami Beach 2002, 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
Ellen Jong © 2020