ELLEN JONG

"Art has always been a way to be ok in the world since childhood. It comes from the gut, back of the mind, memory, hilarity and the world right where I am, and it's the truest thing to dig deep, ask questions and discover version of yourself and ideas that move. I'm never still. After some years of shooting street reportage and 'to be quick,' I'm into being tactile with a new material, meaningful in another way, and going slow."   - Ellen Jong

FORM

LANGUAGE

FEMALENESS

NEXT

American, Queens NY 1976

Ellen Jong is a mixed media artist whose practice is rooted in conceptual interventions often employing methods/tools/objects of the vernacular and her own personal history.

Her practice began in photography. After the publication of her first two photographic monographs that deal largely with contemporary feminisms and self-discovery, her subjects urged her to expand her practice by using industrial materials, traditional or old craft, alchemy and aesthetics for sculptural works. 

New work in ink demonstrate her latest inquires in form, language and femininity. Since 2014, experimentation was at the crux of her process to develop an ink applying the raw materials and methods used to make the centuries old traditional Chinese ink stick. The ink medium is organic, vulnerable to the elements, malleable, dries into a solid and characteristically always transitioning in state, shape and form. The subversive application of her ink finally attempt to express a reappropriated language that is true, contradictory and fluid. 

Jong first came onto the scene with her photographic self-portrait series taken while urinating anywhere but the ladies room, in and on the world. The epic tomb spanned over a decade starting in the late 90's in NYC. Her photographic works have been seen in both commercial and art publications and exhibitions. She is the author of two photographic monographs - Pees on Earth by Miss Rosen Edition/powerHouse Books (2006) and Getting To Know My Husband's Cock, Self-Published (2010). 

Jong lives and works in LA.

EXHIBITIONS 

Solo Show

2015 Sea Bounds, Basement 6 Collective Space, Shanghai, China

2012 Invisible Line, Allegra LaViola Gallery NY

2000 I.C.U.P, 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

Art Fairs

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)