Ariel Vision: Meet The Artist Transcending Generations
When I ask Ariel Dong if she can pinpoint the exact moment she knew she wanted to pursue art, she tells me she can’t necessarily track the origins of it. She does, however, paint a picture of the journey she is on now – one she describes as a liminal phase. “Understanding this helped with my art because it allowed me to understand there isn’t anything that I should be making. I just had to be honest with myself because I was constantly telling myself I had to settle something to make my art – but maybe this is the art itself.” This soft candidness is what peppers most of our conversation, a refreshing walk through of Dong’s journey so far as well as the driving force behind her works.
Up until recently, Dong was in Providence, pursuing a sculpture major at the revered Rhode Island School of Design – an art college that counts artists such as Jenny Holzer and Cindy Sherman as alumnus – only to have the year interrupted by Covid-19. “It’s been a tumultuous journey caught in the middle of Covid,” she shares. Back in Singapore for an exchange semester at YALE-NUS, Dong now has the freedom to take up a range of subjects to substantiate her curriculum – a fitting mode of work given the various mediums she prefers to explore.
When I first stumble across Dong’s Instagram account (@afishwithnotail), I am taken by snippets of her work. In one image, a looming oyster clay sculpture. In another, a curved wooden display. She explains to me that the latter was handmade and used in a short film of hers – a piece titled 吃饭 (Eat) 2020. A quick scroll through her account unveils various other works presented through video. “A lot of themes I deal with are about being female and gender equality – especially in a Chinese family. It also has to do with kinship and love and intergenerational dependencies.” In another piece titled My Mother Knows Better Than Nietzsche, Dong is seen mouthing to words from Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations over an overlaid voice – a voice one could assume is her mother’s. In a piece titled Video Poetry, she shaves her head while reciting poetry – invoking the lines “Mother, who am I? Mother, answer the phone.” “Why a lot of my art work is performance-based is probably because I see this inherent overlap sameness between art and my life,” she shares. Here, she takes us through her most recent works, the inspiration behind them and her ultimate vision as an artist.
You were a sculpture major at the Rhode Island School of Design. What drew you to the school?
A lot of my decision making has been more intuitive than rational. I always dreamt of being out of the educational system here and being able to go to another place and meet people who might be similar or hugely diverse. It was also an ambition to go to a really good school to prove myself.
How would you describe your work to someone who is seeing it for the first time?
I would say it might really shock or surprise you at first. You might not understand anything that the subject is doing in the video – but you’ll sense vulnerability and honesty which is really what ties in a sense of humanity to my work. You might feel like you’re watching a theatrical performance without a stage and lights. Instead, it might seem like a very short, temporal poem.
What’s the latest thing you’ve worked on?
I have never met my grandmother but people in my family have always thought I was her reincarnated. A recent set of events sparked the feeling that I truly was her. That made me feel like the world is not about me and that I am here to not only heal myself, but my grandmother as well. I’ve always felt spiritual and it hit me at the height of this – so I just went into the bathroom and I started writing messages on the wall as though I was speaking from a deeper voice that wasn’t my own. My next important question was, what do I do with this? Making art is what solidifies these experiences. So I decided to paint all over my body and go out and take photographs. I managed to take hundreds of photos. It’s going to be exciting to see how they turn out.
Do you have a title for this work yet?
No, not yet.
What would be your ideal creative goal?
My ideal goal would be to be with a group of people that we all deeply trust and love and to be able to access higher spirituality – to be able to be free in that sense with our bodies and our souls. And we would write, dabble in theatre, read poetry, make art, films and movies.
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Photography Joel Low
Styling Gregory Woo
Hair Junz Loke using Kevin Murphy Singapore
Makeup Wee Ming using Laura Mercier
Photography Assistant Alfie Pan
Subject Ariel Dong in Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton
This article first appeared in the March 2021 issue of L'Officiel Singapore.
