Cecile Chong, "Starburst Strainger"
Beads, mirror, and strainer
18” x 11” x 8”
2019
The word “Strainger” is a play-on-words between a stranger and a strainer. In this “Strainger Series” of mask-like sculptures, the beaded image of the “guagua” covers most of the surface of a kitchen strainer. The straingers themselves suggest the act of separation, liquid from solid, interior from exterior, insider from outsider, the exotic from the mundane. Donated necklaces, rosaries, and accessories are repurposed, and hand beaded onto kitchen strainers along with natural materials from Ecuador such as tagua, acai, pambil, huayruro, and other natural seeds from the Amazon.
STATEMENT
Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, public art, and video, layering materials, identities, and histories. Her work addresses ideas of cultural interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share in our relationship to nature and to each other. Inspired by materials as signifiers, she’s interested in how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable.
With uncertainty looming in everything from our economies to our weather patterns, she’s concerned with the fragility of our civilization despite the universality of its cultural underpinnings. In her work she’s been looking at traditional artifacts and wondering what tangible relics we may leave for future generations and what they may say about who we were and how we lived.
BIO
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macao. Her public art installation EL DORADO - The New Forty Niners was installed in the five boroughs of New York City (2017-2022). Fellowships and residencies include Dieu Donné Workspace, BAC - Brooklyn Arts Fund, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYSCA, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Hispanic Society’s Vilcek Artist Research Fellowship, Block Gallery/Bronx Museum, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Selenas Mountain, ICFAC at Pinta Miami, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Five Myles, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin, and Honey Ramka. Chong’s work is in the collections of El Museo, Museum of Chinese in America, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Center for Book Arts, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Citibank Art Advisory, and private collections internationally. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College.
Beads, mirror, and strainer
18” x 11” x 8”
2019
The word “Strainger” is a play-on-words between a stranger and a strainer. In this “Strainger Series” of mask-like sculptures, the beaded image of the “guagua” covers most of the surface of a kitchen strainer. The straingers themselves suggest the act of separation, liquid from solid, interior from exterior, insider from outsider, the exotic from the mundane. Donated necklaces, rosaries, and accessories are repurposed, and hand beaded onto kitchen strainers along with natural materials from Ecuador such as tagua, acai, pambil, huayruro, and other natural seeds from the Amazon.
STATEMENT
Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, public art, and video, layering materials, identities, and histories. Her work addresses ideas of cultural interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share in our relationship to nature and to each other. Inspired by materials as signifiers, she’s interested in how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable.
With uncertainty looming in everything from our economies to our weather patterns, she’s concerned with the fragility of our civilization despite the universality of its cultural underpinnings. In her work she’s been looking at traditional artifacts and wondering what tangible relics we may leave for future generations and what they may say about who we were and how we lived.
BIO
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macao. Her public art installation EL DORADO - The New Forty Niners was installed in the five boroughs of New York City (2017-2022). Fellowships and residencies include Dieu Donné Workspace, BAC - Brooklyn Arts Fund, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYSCA, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Hispanic Society’s Vilcek Artist Research Fellowship, Block Gallery/Bronx Museum, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Selenas Mountain, ICFAC at Pinta Miami, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Five Myles, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin, and Honey Ramka. Chong’s work is in the collections of El Museo, Museum of Chinese in America, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Center for Book Arts, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Citibank Art Advisory, and private collections internationally. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College.
Beads, mirror, and strainer
18” x 11” x 8”
2019
The word “Strainger” is a play-on-words between a stranger and a strainer. In this “Strainger Series” of mask-like sculptures, the beaded image of the “guagua” covers most of the surface of a kitchen strainer. The straingers themselves suggest the act of separation, liquid from solid, interior from exterior, insider from outsider, the exotic from the mundane. Donated necklaces, rosaries, and accessories are repurposed, and hand beaded onto kitchen strainers along with natural materials from Ecuador such as tagua, acai, pambil, huayruro, and other natural seeds from the Amazon.
STATEMENT
Chong is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, public art, and video, layering materials, identities, and histories. Her work addresses ideas of cultural interaction and interpretation, as well as the commonalities humans share in our relationship to nature and to each other. Inspired by materials as signifiers, she’s interested in how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable.
With uncertainty looming in everything from our economies to our weather patterns, she’s concerned with the fragility of our civilization despite the universality of its cultural underpinnings. In her work she’s been looking at traditional artifacts and wondering what tangible relics we may leave for future generations and what they may say about who we were and how we lived.
BIO
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macao. Her public art installation EL DORADO - The New Forty Niners was installed in the five boroughs of New York City (2017-2022). Fellowships and residencies include Dieu Donné Workspace, BAC - Brooklyn Arts Fund, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYSCA, LMCC Creative Engagement, Urban Field Station, The Hispanic Society’s Vilcek Artist Research Fellowship, Block Gallery/Bronx Museum, BRIC Media Arts, Joan Mitchell Center, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant. Solo exhibitions include Kates-Ferri Projects, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, Selenas Mountain, ICFAC at Pinta Miami, Smack Mellon, Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Five Myles, BRIC House, Emerson Gallery Berlin, and Honey Ramka. Chong’s work is in the collections of El Museo, Museum of Chinese in America, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Center for Book Arts, Bryn Mawr Hospital, Citibank Art Advisory, and private collections internationally. She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College.