Artist

ALICE GONG XIAOWEN

Biography

Alice Gong Xiaowen was born in Beijing, China, in 1994 and now lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut. She received her BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016 and is pursuing her MFA diploma in Sculpture at Yale School of Art. Examining her immigrant background from China to Canada, Gong explores diasporic experiences through the preservation of collective memories underlain in mundane objects, fostering a sense of belonging amidst displaced contexts in the lens of culture and historical traditions. Her sculptures and installations, often combining ready-made, sound, metal casting and ephemeral materials, intentionally defamiliarize and recalibrate behaviors associated with customs and rituals, reconstructing identity and authenticity as lineages in flux. Found objects are incorporated into her practice as placeholders, layering sensorial cues into disorienting and ambiguous distillations where repetitive motions and forms occurred in her works fall into the void. In her multi-media assemblages, the familiar becomes alien, foreshadowing a loss of integration that reconstitutes perceptual remnants into distant echoes and further bearing witness to the exhaustive efforts to grasp words or translation, a pursuit that fails and remains in a state of constant dissociation with its material endeavor. Alice Gong Xiaowen’s recent solo and two-person exhibitions include: CHAMBER, lower_cavity, Holyoke, 2024; Malar, house of Seiko, San Francisco, 2023. Group exhibitions include: Can Thought Go On Without a Body?, Stilllife, New York, 2024; Adaptation, Franz Kaka, Toronto, 2024; In Summer's Teeth, Silke Lindner, New York, 2023; Bury the Bridge, DUPLEX, New York, 2022. She is the recipient of the Explore and Create Grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts, 2022; the UrbanGlass Winter Scholarship Award, 2019; and the John W. Kurtich Foundation Travel Fellowship, 2015.
​

Alice Gong Xiaowen, flour, water, 2019

Solo and two-persons exhibitions

2024    CHAMBER: Alice Gong Xiaowen, lower_cavity, Holyoke, US
2024    Malar, with Kennedy Morgan, house of seiko, San Francisco, US


Group exhibitions

2024    Can Thought Go On Without a Body?, Stilllife, New York, US
2024    The Oil of Angels, Iowa, Brooklyn, US
2024    Adaptation, Franz Kaka, Toronto, CA
2023    In Summer’s Teeth, Silke Lindner, New York, US
2023    Why Do I Always Fall out of Bed at Night?, Yale Art Gallery, New Haven, US
2023    The Art of Access, New Collectors and Visionary Projects, New York, US
2023    EMBODIED, Hercules Art Studio Program, New York, US
2023    Mantle, Aminah Ibrahim Performance Series, New York, US
2023    HOUSE, Hatch, New York, US
2022    Bury the Bridge, DUPLEX, New York, US
2022    Rough Cuts, MASS Gallery, Austin, US
2022    Looped / Lykkjuð, Icelandic Textile Center, Blönduós, IS
2022    The Patriot, O’Flaherty’s, New York, US
2022    Merde! Auction, Alyssa Davis Gallery, Brooklyn, US
2022    Titebond Infinity, 651 Woodward Ave, Brooklyn, US
2021    Salon #1, New Collectors, New York, US


Residencies

2022    Ós Textile Residency Icelandic Textile Center, Blönduós, IS
2019    D-Crit Summer Intensive, MA Design Research, Writing, and Criticism, SVA, New York, US
2017    Pier 9, Autodesk, San Francisco, US
2015    Object Lab 7.0, The Chipstone Foundation, Milwaukee, US


Press

2024    Adaptation at Franz Kaka, Toronto, Akimbo
2023    Cast iron dumpling sutures and winding graphite snakes in resonant ‘Malar’, 48Hills


Awards

2022    Canadian Council for the Arts Grant Explore and Create
2019    UrbanGlass Winter Scholarship Award
2015    John W. Kurtich Foundation Travel Fellowship
2015    Franz Award International Design Compeition Finalist and Excellence Award


Lectures

2022 The Infrastructure of Exhibition Symposim, Syracuse University Department of Architecture
Multi-Disciplinary Design Visting Artist Lecture Series, University of Utah College of Architecture + Planning

---