ARTIST STATEMENT
I am a community-driven interdisciplinary artist deeply interested in the nuanced parameters that shape culture. I explore notions of space and place as well as what meaning and image-making look like in a digitized society.
Working from both a personal and collective lens, I am interested in utilizing various creative processes including photography, writing, painting, sculpture and participatory interventions to explore lived experiences, collective histories, and the socio-cultural fabric of the post-Internet era.
The Island Translations project is an exploration of sense and placemaking through mark making. I am inspired by the stories my family tells me, the rituals of their habits that piece together semblances of home, and the natural beauties of the motherland that seem fantastical and distant. I think of how these marks can create space for my family, to translate (or best interpret) their space, to honor and to memorialize their space.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I am a practicing artist and current teaching artist based in Philadelphia, PA. Since having graduated at Carnegie Mellon University in 2018 with an interdisciplinary degree in Fine Art and Global Management, my work has been featured in 20+ group exhibitions in cities including NY, PA, VA, MA and OH. I have received press mentions from BBC China, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Pittsburgh City Paper, and The Tartan.
Recently, my work was exhibited in the Philadelphia Airport through MINI Museum Philly, at Carlow University through the Anthropology of Motherhood Project, and at the Three Rivers Arts Festival’s 2021 Juried Visual Art Exhibition. Occasionally delving into creative nonfiction, my work was recently published in the online publication, Zou Mat Je, and will be exhibited at the 2022 Perth Festival under the organization DADAA (Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts Australia). Additionally, I was a recent virtual artist-in-residence at ECAASU (East Coast Asian American Student Union) from 2020-2021. Outside of creative practice, I currently am an Americorps teaching artist at Vaux Big Picture High School, where I support arts-integration in classrooms and run an in-house Maker Space for disadvantaged students in North Philly. Previously, I worked at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust as a digital marketer, where I supported the production of many free and low-cost arts festivals for the greater Pittsburgh community.
© Grace Wong