Chong’s pencil and gouache drawings revel in detail and the exploration of line, form and gesture. Abstract images--minute squared punctuations seamed together by skeins of delicate lines--cluster upon the rich surface of the paper in a haze of plotted points. These purposeful and intricate markings, quietly articulated in gray on off-white rice paper, or with crisp whites on hand-dyed indigo Japanese paper, appear at once ordered and spontaneous. Connecting one geometric dot to the next, Chong infuses the work with a sense of lyrical rhythm, expanse and calm, tranquility in movement, improvisation. This intimation of music is in part derived from Chong’s accomplishments as a cellist and also her admiration for the work of John Cage.
Theresa Chong was born in Korea in 1965 and immigrated with her family to Fairbanks, Alaska in 1974. She attended Oberlin Conservatory, Ohio and the Boston University School of Fine Arts. She received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Her work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, among others. Chong participated in the faculty residency program at the Anderson Ranch in Colorado in 2003 and 2005. She was recently awarded a grant from the Sam and Adele Golden Foundation, and she has received fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts). Theresa Chong lives and works in New York.
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