EFA Studio Artist: Cecile Chong
Every Thursday the three EFA Project Space interns will be going on studio visits around the EFA building. In order to learn more and understand the artists better, we will be posting short bios on the artist and their work the Wednesday before our visit.
EFA Studio Artist: Cecile Chong.
Cecile Chong's work is very whimsical and delicate, but the details are striking. She works in sculpture, installation, and painting and uses encaustic painting in most of her work. Chong draws influence from multiple cultures. Born in Ecuador to Chinese parents, she is interested in how cultures copy one another. One of her series from 2012 called Common Dictionary addresses the similarities in language.
"In this ongoing series titled Common Dictionary, I established a somewhat arbitrary rule where I look for things that have a common beginning sound in Spanish, Cantonese and English (languages that I speak). Once I find a work with a common first sound, I create a visual narrative around that work to add insight to the ways we conceptualize and communicate. often the words I would find were obvious "modern crossovers" (e.g., microphone-micrófono-mai cou fun); others seemed the result of earlier interactions (trade, colonialism) (e.g., coffee-café-ca fe) and some suggested echoes of perhaps an ancient common root (e.g., mother-madre-ma). Still other similarities seemed to be purely random coincidence (e.g., fire-fuego-fo) but who can really say for sure?"
A common object in Chong's work is a "guagua" which represent swaddled babies that are commonly seen in Ecuador. She often creates sculptures of them, but they can also be found hidden in her paintings if you look hard enough.
"I use the image of the swaddled babies, which is a tradition from my native Ecuador. A tightly wrapped baby placed into an oversize shawl or blanket and strapped onto the mother's back is a familiar scene throughout the Andes. These "guaguas" or "thumb babies" in my work suggest a blank slate, ready to witness and experience cultural encounters and question issues of nature versus nurture."
Cecile Chong is currently a studio artist at EFA and will be participating in EFA's Open Studios for Armory Arts Week on March 3rd from 5-9pm. For more information on Cecile Chong and her work please visit her website.