Recent work involves deconstructing a dried organic ink from my heritage for sculptural works. Regarding all history, law and self-possession, ink is cautionary. The material itself is cautionary. I can manipulate it but it is alive and will complete itself in nature. The practice observes, processes and expresses potential in change.
PROCESS
FORM
FEMALENESS
PLACE
I am an Asian American female artist from Queens, NY who creates psychologically loaded spatial encounters charged with self-awareness. My experimental multi-disciplinary practice began in street photography where the public realm established itself as a platform for discourse and discovery. In the late 90’s, I turned the camera onto myself and projected an expanding practice that continues to negotiate with my place and impact in the world.
My earliest body of work is in photographs and captures my coming-of-age over eight years urinating anywhere but on a toilet. My monograph, Pees On Earth (Miss Rosen Edition/powerHouse Books) was published in 2006. The performance is a serial reclamation of body, place and existence, and a political protest aimed to deconstruct stereotypes of the Asian American girl. In conversation with the legendary Annie Sprinkle for the book’s forward, I state “I want to break down the bathroom walls.”
A decade later, I began a new body of work using another liquid material - ink. In this case, it is an ink derived from ancient China that dries into a solid. Its organic protein make-up allows it to turn into liquid using water on a grinding stone. This material’s potential to transform coalesce with my fluid propositions with the changing conditions of our times. In reinventing ink matter, I forge a new path, a deeper one, into self-discovery wrought with trauma, process and hope.
New sculptural work in ink began in Shanghai, China, 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
SELECTED GROUP SHOW
2021 Five Minutes To Live curated by Benjamin Tischer, New Discretions, 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
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)
Ellen Jong © 2020