Exhibition at DiverseWorks, Houston, TX. 2022
Notes to an unknown visitor
Houston Paintings
A selection of works exhibited at Art League Houston, March 22nd–May 4th, 2019.
In 2016, after moving to Houston, Texas from Auckland, New Zealand, my forays to local museum collections sparked a return to painting. Using photographic images from the book Houston’s Forgotten Heritage as a starting point, my paintings re-interpret the content of these historical images, and render new relationships to the present through my use of color. I went on to explore photographic images from other sources, including YouTube videos and children’s encyclopedias from the 1950s. My paintings employ the use of saturated color and meticulous techniques in a bid to tease out previously unnoticed details, to highlight the construction of the source images, or to emphasize the mythological or symbolic qualities that exist in the mundane. In these paintings, I use color and compositional elements in a non-natural way to jolt the viewer out of taking what they see for granted, nudging them to accept instability of history as told through photographic images.
To view all the works, along with their accompanying texts, go to the archived website.
New Work 2018
Featuring Liyen Chong, Emily Wolfe, Liz Maw & Yvonne Todd at Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland, July 2018.
A family of Swans enjoy themselves by the water-side. The young Swans or “Cygnets,” seem to prefer the water.
In Deer Park, Wanganui, the deer are tame
Serial Killer in Cerulean Blue
Cadmium Yellow Light
Serial Killer in Dioxazine Violet
From gallery press release: Houston-based LIYEN CHONG’s new work shows a significant and exciting stylistic shift in the artist’s practice while still continuing her exploration into colour, now in the medium of painting. Imagery and captions are sourced from a children’s encyclopedia published in the UK in the 1950s that she came across several years ago. In these paintings, she says, “I’m separating image from naturalistic colour as a way of protesting the visual world and proposing a different kind of perception, one that is mediated by colour.” Included in this show is a series of paintings of a tigrillo (a.k.a. tiger cat) in different colors. “By painting the original image in an upside down orientation, I’m forcing myself to respond to the formal qualities and practicing a certain kind of abstraction, skimming the line between formalism and conceptualism.” It also coincides with an exhibition of previous work “She watched her wings fly, her mouth shut, her feet run” by Chong at the Wallace Trust Gallery opening 24 July and running till 16 September.
To enquire about these works, please go to Melanie Roger Gallery (opens link in a new tab/window)
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres
For the 2016 #AklArtFair Projects (Pacific Real Time), I’ll be headed to NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston and posting to Instagram from there. For you early birds in Auckland, see if you can catch me while I’m still there! (4pm CDT will be 9am NZST)
#OnTheRevolutionsoftheHeavenlySpheres @liyenchong #liyenchong
For an introduction, click here.
The Strangeness of Words (Video)
The Strangeness of Words (2015).
Single channel video. No sound. 16’35”
Dimensions variable to screen.
Dreams Moons Circles Fictions
(and fragments found on the forest floor of disquietude)
A solo survey show of works (2003-2014) exhibited at the Papakura Art Gallery, Auckland, February 2014
For this exhibition, the projects A Humid Day and Untitled (White Book) were released as e-books.
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A selection of works included in this solo survey show:
Untitled (Exportware)
Moon Bowl II
Monday
Body without Organs
Contemplating difference
Icons for observing points of the mind
Disappearance scheduled for Friday
She thought she was in a play when the whole scene had to be repeated again
You would, wouldn’t you? (For Ms AJ who remembers every minute of her life)
Hero
Familiar Spirit of The Cold Blooded Eater
Optimimsical
The economic interpretation of history is for the birds
Following fumbling falling finding fantasticities
They are usually wearing white.
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images courtesy of Papakura Art Gallery.
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Click here for images of the opening on Papakura Art Gallery’s facebook page.
To download the e-books featured in the show, please follow this link for further information.
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Published in conjunction with the exhibition Dreams Circles Moons Fictions and fragments found on the forest floor of disquietude held at Papakura Art Gallery in February 2014. For images click here.
An introduction by Tracey Williams, and a catalogue essay by Dr. Cathy Tuato’o Ross.
Resolution
Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland, August 2013
The Pleasantly Unnameable
Oh now, really? Well, so long and thanks for all the fish!
Following fumbling falling finding fantasticities
Bling Master and the Pink Bananas
Demeter’s man disappearing under a fog of spots
Enough with the irrelevant information, the point is now here
If only windows could roll too!
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A cloud to think about.
Conflagration of a bad star releasing energy
A triangulated chain reaction.
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Measured response to: “This little fellow is quite content to be held up for inspection…”
Aye, she’s beautiful, isn’t she? (the Sublime Monster sings the Song of the Universe)
The economic interpretation of history is for the birds
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Enkyklios
Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, February 2013
Ellipses elicit eligible elemental themes Painting and metallic leaf on archival inkjet print, framed. 336mm x 476mm x 35mm
Red apples
Green apples
Impossible to depict an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere
Now they make us plough the ground for sense
“Let us begin time” said the Old Man as he sped from darkness to light (with Age, Fertility, Death and Binary Systems)
Variegated groups of men Painting and metallic leaf on archival inkjet print, framed. 240mm x 639mm x 35mm
Aum, um… Painting and metallic leaf on archival inkjet print, framed. 240mm x 639mm x 35mm
They are usually flying.
They are usually wearing white.
Click here for the review on Eyecontact.
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Goyang Art Studio 2012 September-November
Open Studio 8
National Art Studio, Goyang, South Korea, October 2012
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Invocations
Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland, April 2012
Archival inkjet print, edition of 3
These are part of a series of works exploring issues in self-imaging that of an identity embedded in the flux of migration and its relationship to mass media, this piece captures what seems to be semi-private, fleeting moments in a studio filled with nameless odds and ends.
Contemplating difference
Icons for observing points of the mind
Feeling ahead – peering into a dark hole
Autonomous Translocation of Forms
Abolishment of Time
Phases of Identification with such things as Nouns
Invocation from where no centre can hold