All the Light in a Vivid Dream

Hong Hong

Jewett Art Gallery

March 22 - April 27, 2018

white-walled gallery with wood floors; very large, nearly floor-to-ceiling pieces of handmade artist paper, abstractly speckled in shades of blue, white, and pink, installed on the walls

All the Light in a Vivid Dream, selections from Everlasting Ephemera, features handmade paper artwork by Connecticut-based artist Hong Hong. Too large to be poured indoors, Hong's pieces must be created in temporary frames outside, where they are subject to the influence of sun, wind, and water. The resulting large-scale sheets of paper contain evidence of these natural forces, in addition to the colors, shapes, and textures over which Hong exercises more deliberate control. Her works do not directly depict landscapes, but through the traces that weather conditions leave on them they refer to the landscapes in which they are created, giving them a measure of site-specificity.

The formation of personal landscapes in light of the sociological and scientific conditions that surround them - such as migration, exile, myth, time, meteorology, and topography - has been a thread connecting the ongoing multidisciplinary project that Hong has titled Everlasting Ephemera. The pieces in this exhibition are made from kozo (long plant fibers traditionally used in papermarking) and recycled paper pulp from earlier iterations of the project. Works in the series are made from the art that came before in a cycle of transience and rebirth that mimics many natural processes.

All the Light in a Vivid Dream was on view in the Jewett Art Gallery from March 22 - April 27, 2018.

large rectangular papermaking frame, held together with clamps and surrounded by tarps, holding wet paper pulp in blue, white, and pink; an asphalt loading dock is visible around it

Hong Hong's oversized papermaking frame being used to make a new sheet of paper on the PNW loading dock at Wellesley College.

close up on primarily blue wet paper pulp, with scattered white and pink, in a large wooden frame held together with clamps. Trees in the background indicate that the frame is located outdoors.

Close up on wet paper pulp outside of PNW at Wellesley College.

close to the camera, a large papermaking frame held together with clamps holding a lot of wet blue paper pulp with scattered white and pink; in the background is a raised loading dock and a large neo-Gothic brick building. Two people stand on the dock and a metal dumpster is visible at right.

Hong Hong worked with students, along with professors Katherine Ruffin and Adriana Knouf, to create some of her largescale handmade paper pieces on campus as part of the 2018 Applied Arts workshop programming.

close up on handmade paper with swirling textures in pink and white with blue

close up on handmade paper with swirling textures in blue with pink and white

installation view of a white-walled gallery with wood floor, two giant pieces of handmade paper in shades of pink, white, and blue on the walls

photo of a person with black hair tied back and glasses, wearing a gray cardigan over black shirt, smiling and looking down in front of an enormous piece of blue, white, and pink handmade paper

Hong Hong

Born in Heifei, China, Hong Hong earned her MFA in 2014 from the University of Georgia and her BFA in 2011 from the State University of New York at Potsdam. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, including shows at Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; the Madison Museum of Art; the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts; the New Mexico History Museum; and the Georgia Museum of Art. She has received numerous grants and commissions, and has been an artist-in-residence at PLAYA, the Morgan Conservatory, and Artspace New Haven.

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