Hello friend,
A few nights ago, I had the wonderful pleasure of seeing my cousins Hassan and Alessandro in Brussels. Hassan had just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., and was clearly enthralled by the city. He shared photos of the impressive vaulting tunnels of the metro and rows of low-slung buildings. He appreciated how the world-class museums were free to the public and how smooth the roads are. Something in all of this enchantment—maybe the green swaths across the city, maybe the lack of skyscrapers blocking the sun—reminded him of Europe.
Having lived in D.C., I recognized what Hassan described, but for me, the parts didn’t add up to “European.” The city seems completely American. The red-white-and-blue flutters everywhere; much of the population shifts rapidly with the vagaries of the elections; monuments to our democracy sprout across the city. Nonetheless, listening to my cousin describe his impressions caused me to reassess, and in turn, D.C. began to beckon. I found myself wanting to experience the delightful city he described.
After our dinner, I started thinking about how what feels like the reality of our experience is often driven by unconscious personal, generational, or cultural forces—and how excavating them can open us up to something fresh. So for this week’s invitation, I turn to a sculptural painting by the artist Cecile Chong. Some of her imagery may seem familiar, but she delves deeper to reveal new ways of thinking about the past and also about our present. Maybe even our future.
May you find freshness in the quotidian,
Katarina
In case you missed it:
Invitation 23: “Los Güines de la Esperanza” by Marcel Molina (public post)
Invitation 24: “Untitled XIX, 1984" by Willem de Kooning
Invitation 25: “Madonna with Canon Joris van der Paele” by Jan van Eyck
Invitation 26: “Les Grisailles” by Brigitte Simon
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Invitation 27: "Bad Habits" by Cecile Chong
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents, and grew up in Quito and Macau before moving to the U.S. As an artist she is a kind of archeologist, excavating personal memories, experiences, and cultural references as a way of investigating what they reveal about us more broadly.
Take, for example, her piece “Bad Habits.” At first glance, two figures, a small Caucasian boy and a stern Asian woman, are set against a gentle landscape. The goddess-like woman looms large behind the child who has been caught sucking his thumb. She holds out a hand in a gesture that could be read as “halt” or even an impending slap. Cecile shares that, “It makes me think how much time we spend correcting behavior, and what we consider ‘bad’ is often shaped by cultural expectations and generational norms.”
Yet as we look closer, the artist has made other deliberate choices. First, the “canvas” is a mini-skateboard, which, in its vertical form, brings to mind traditional Chinese landscape scroll paintings. It also is a piece about play and freedom, the way children learn to be with each other, to try out new worlds, to experience themselves in different roles…in other words, to be outside of expectations and norms if only for a short time.
Cecile builds up a thick surface of 25 to 30 layers of encaustic [melted wax and resins] on the skateboard base, embedding a variety of objects such as raw pigments, volcanic ash from her homeland, rice paper, metallic leaf, beads and circuit board components in the layers. As she writes, “Each material becomes a cultural signifier…[the layers] metaphorically representing layering of cultures, identities, and places.”
There’s also her use of a predominantly blue and white palette, a nod to Chinese ceramics traded with European countries, going back to the 14th century. Overland trade routes like the Silk Road brought pieces to Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and other parts of the continent, while the Manila Galleon, sea trade via the Philippines, introduced these designs to artisans in the so-called “new world” as they made their way further eastward. By the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans not only drove a market for these blue and white pieces, their tastes strongly influenced the types of vessels Chinese ceramicists created—candlesticks, ewers, mugs—coalescing in a hybrid form of Chinese export porcelain.
Cecile’s work reminds us that we as individuals, communities, cultures, and nations are always being buffeted by a multitude of forces, many of which are experienced unconsciously. Some may lead to unexpected forms of creativity or new ways of looking at the world, but others forces function in more limiting ways. In “Bad Habits,” as she does her other work, Cecile pulls those tensions to the surface, and in doing so offers a way to consider what we keep, reject, or would alter.
To see more of Cecile Chong’s work, please visit her website cecilechong.com. She will have a solo exhibition/ installation "_other Nature - Marshland Tales" at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey in Summit from September 2025 - January 2026.
This week’s invitation:
What ideas or tensions can be re-examined in your life so that things like play, joy, and self-acceptance can come to the fore?Take a few minutes to write your thoughts or turn them into some other form of expression. I invite you to share what came up for you in the comments section as a way for us all to be together.
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