Intricate and meticulously composed, the gouache and colored pencil drawings of Korean-born, New York-based artist Theresa Chong possess a quiet, meditative quality. Recent works take their titles from the hexagrams of the I Ching (Book of Changes), one of the oldest texts of ancient China that discusses the balancing of forces and concepts of change, ideas that have been important to Chong’s work for some time. Her recent works take inspiration from the act of rubbing ancient Chinese stone markers, seen here in the accumulation of hundreds of carefully drawn lines that make up an undulating field. The two shapes that disrupt this field suggest any number of elemental forces that shift and merge over time. Chong’s work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Boston, among others.
Theresa Chong
K’UN (EARTH)
2016
colored pencil and gouache on hand-dyed indigo Japanese paper
10 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches