February 27 - March 22, 2009
Reception: Friday - February 27, 2009, 6-9pm
 
Artist's talk by Mary Ting at the gallery Sunday March 15, 4pm and reception to follow
 
Gallery Hours: Saturday - Sunday, 12pm - 6pm
and always by advance appointment

In her new installation Mary Ting broadens and expands upon her continuing interest in explorations of fairytale and mythology. Ting draws inspirations from a wide variety of folk, literary and historical sources --both Eastern and Western, ancient to contemporary. Her references come from the fox ghost stories of Pu Song Ling to Juan Rulfo's precursor to magic realism, Pedro Paramo, to the trials of contemporary witch hunts. As Ting states: "The work bears the residual weight of our ghosts past, present, and future. Personal experiences and family history naturally play an integral role in the making of the work."

Though she has created previous installations and photographs for Metaphor, this exhibition marks her first full scale solo show at the gallery. The exhibition highlights several related yet distinct material approaches to her personal mythology; installation, mono prints, drawings, sculpture and her signature technique of cut paper works.

Using a variety of media, Ting cuts burns, smokes and stains paper, and cloth, combining them with natural objects, piles of shoes and animal masks to create her magical and mysterious world of talismans. The process of making the work is a kind of personal diary made ritual. With her shamanistic approach, Ting's use of universal natural forms such as insects, roots and animal hooves reaches deep into the dark corners of our collective souls to awaken our own subconscious spiders weaving their universal memory threads of spiritual and corporal symbology.

Mary Ting describes the concept of the exhibition: "This exhibition centers on the Witch, Whore and Widow who are forever linked and equated with each other in their societal role -- the role of the independent female who is apart from the rest, bearing unusual marks, being too quiet, being too smart, being too this way too that way and thereby subject to gossip, accusations, jealousy, and betrayal. She, the Witch/Whore/Widow, is the ever-present threat within, and for me the topic of ongoing exploration. The work contains ambiguities: who is eating whom; wherein lies the poison and where the antidote? The aspect of shame and the edges of existence are essential elements."

Mary Ting's recent exhibitions include metaphor contemporary art; Chelsea Art Museum; Islip Art Museum, and The LAB. Ting is a two time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Ruth Chenvon Foundation 2006 Award, Lambent Fellowship in the Arts, Pollack Krasner Foundation grant, Puffin Foundation, NYSCA fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell Colony, Dieu Donne Papermill, the Lower Eastside Print Shop, among others.

Mary Ting has a BFA from Parsons School of Design; an advanced studies degree in Folkart Research/Studio Art from the Central Academy of Art, Beijing, and a MFA from Vermont College.

Mary Ting teaches at Transart Institute, NY/Berlin, CUNY John Jay College and Pratt Institute in Manhattan. She has been a visiting artist at Concordia University, Montreal, NYU APA studies, Parsons School of Design, and Drew University.