OTHER INSTALLATIONS
CHICKEN LITTLE - LOST IN TRANSMISSION, 2024
At 125 Maiden Lane
Mixed Media
East wall 9 x 18 x 10 ft
West wall 9 x 13 x 11 ft
Chicken Little – Lost in Transmission considers the impact of fear mongering in an increasingly digital world. Drawing on her own multi-cultural identity, being born in Ecuador to Chinese parents, Chong’s multimedia practice navigates the complexities of otherness through her material and historical explorations.
Chicken Little, an evolving exhibition the artist began in 2017, depicts a “crumbling sky” formed from organically modeled foam panels, deftly painted with a white and blue wash and layered with encaustic dipped, dried flora. For this iteration of the installation, the fragments dramatically cascade down the marble walls on each end of the lobby, framing a series of heaping, floor based figures that are dripping in the same luscious, waxy materials. Through merging the synthetic with the natural, the installation acts as a symbol of our man-made attempts at saving the increasingly fragile and decaying natural world around us.
Furthering the investigation of how we connect interpersonally and with the world in which we live, Chong inserts a cell tower into the space that “transmit” to growing figures below, which are replete with plexiglass rods as receptors. The assembled metaphors of the installation are a gathering place for discourse on how we acquire and share culture, and how world cultures now overlap and interact in ways previously inconceivable. While the figures merge together in larger masses, some stand independently – reflecting on both the isolation and connectedness a digital world affords. As content is disseminated more easily than ever online and through social media, how we filter through truths and misinformation is progressively more challenging – often times ‘lost in transmission.’ The installation serves as a poignant commentary on these dangers and the fear it can produce.
- Tessa Ferreyros, curator
Untitled, 2024
Encaustic and mixed media
6 x 5 x 0.5 ft
Marble House Project - Residency #60, March 2024
From Sea and Land
Encaustic and mixed media
48 x 56 x 4 inches
Surf Point Maine - Residency Program, November 2023
Chicken Little
The Locker Room, 2023
Encaustic and mixed media (flowers and plants from Wave Hill and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans)
8.3 x 9 x 12 ft
An installation depicting a crumbling falling sky, a reference to the dangers of fear-mongering.
Six Degrees of Separation
Long Island Children's Museum, 2020
Mixed Media
18 ft x15 ft x 18 in
As individuals our social needs drive us to look for ways to connect with each other. Covid 19 has introduced a new barrier to the way we address this need. This installation alludes to our current times requiring us to be 6 ft apart to protect our health and safety. It also serves as a reminder that in theory we are all six or fewer social connections apart.
STRAINGERS, 2019
Main Window DUMBO
Beaded strainers and encaustic sculptures
12 x 10.5 x 2 ft
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, and natural seeds from the Amazon.
Chicken Little
The Painting Center, 2018
Encaustic and mixed media (flowers and plants from Wave Hill and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans)
12 x 9 x 5 ft
An installation depicting a crumbling sky, a reference to the dangers of fear-mongering.
Chicken Little
Westbeth Gallery, 2017
Encaustic and mixed media (flowers and plants from Wave Hill and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans)
10 x 12 x 6 ft
An installation depicting a crumbling sky, a reference to the dangers of fear-mongering.
Placeholder
Joan Mitchell Center, New Orleans - Artist-in-Residence Program, 2017
Encaustic and mixed media
12 ft x 20 ft
A wall installation of natural elements collected from the grounds of Joan Mitchell Center and during my walks in New Orleans.
As these flowers, leaves and branches withered and decayed, they were replaced by forms and shapes of man made materials inspired by nature.
On the Nature of Winter
Wave Hill Winter Workspace Residency, 2017
Encaustic, clay, winter - dried plants and feathers found on the grounds of Wave Hill
62 x 86 inches
Veritas Inverso
Smack Mellon, 2017
Encaustic, Western Arborvitae and soil
6 x 4 x 4 ft
Lemon Tongues
Selena Gallery, 2017
Reflective mylar and color vinyl on windows and doors, crocheted scrolls with Tyvek paper and music tapes on wall, guagua sculptures on floor.
Family Portrait
Prospect Park - Art Slope, 2016
Encaustic and mixed media
18 x 40 x 20 inches
Time Collision
BRIC Project Room, 2015
Paintings, sculptures, artificial turf, fabric and props,
25 ft x 13 ft
A room size installation with reflected elements found in my paintings, where viewers become part of the narratives.
Photos by Jason Wyche, courtesy of BRIC
Hopscotch
BRIC, 2015
Mixed Media
24 x 2.5 ft
In a Different Light
Kunsthalle Galápagos, 2014
Encaustic and mixed media
10 ft x 6 ft x 7 ft
An installation that addresses ideas of interpretation and cultural perception according to the environment.
Ransom
Taller Puertorriqueño, 2014
Mixed media
25 x 84 x 48 inches
An installation referencing to Atahualpa’s ransom, the last Inca emperor offered one room full of gold and two rooms of silver for his freedom from the Spanish explorer Francisco Pizarro in 1533. He was executed regardless of the collection of this ransom.
Locus - Site 1 to Site 5
Honey Ramka Project Space, 2014
Encaustic, plastic, plaster, metal leaf
3 to 15 inches - dimensions variable
Pleased to Meet Me
DUMBO Art Festival, 2014
Reflective mylar and color vinyl
13 x 24 ft
An installation of three colored reflective panels emphasizing that the way we see others and the way others see us are based on and limited to our own cultural filters and experiences.
Pleased to Meet Me
Taller Puertorriqueño, 2014
Reflective mylar and color vinyl
13 x 12 ft
Pleased to Meet Me
Emerson Gallery Berlin, 2014
Reflective mylar and color vinyl
14 x 32 ft
Pleased to Meet Me
Art in Odd Places, MODEL 2012 in two locations on 14th Street NYC
Reflective mylar and color vinyl
120 x 98 inches & 60 x 72 inches
An installation of three colored reflective panels allowing passersby to examine, reflect and adore their own reflection through three different filters; a cultural encounter between us and our own reflection. The panels serve as a contemporary urban device in lieu of Narcissus’ pool of water. These personal vitrines echo our times of social media where we become our own critics, paparazzi and publicists; where for a short moment in time, egoism, conceit, and vanity is encouraged in public.
Broken Cherries
Socrates Sculpture Park, Emerging Artist Fellowship 2011
Mixed Media
216 x 480 x 192 inches
Using natural tagua beads (a.k.a. vegetable ivory) and metal machine nuts to address our increasing dependency on technology and materiality and growing distance from nature. Also alluding to how intercultural exchange has tilted from “exotic” hand-made goods to mundane, utilitarian, mass-produced commodities.
Photos by Bilyana Dimitrova & Patricia Cazorla
Solarium
Corridor Gallery, 2010
Mixed Media
9 x 12 x 12 ft
A site-specific installation. Part of Mirror Mirror off the Wall - solo exhibition at Corridor Gallery
Solarium makes references to ideas of nature versus nurture and how the way we perceive each other has to do with our own cultural filters. Ultimately, our view of ourselves is often cultivated, distorted, and altered by our environment.
