Working in a rage of mediums including sculpture, photography, paper, and video, Mary Ting’s work focuses on her personal experience and family history. Ting, a first generation Chinese American, was raised in the suburbs of Long Island but maintained close family ties to China where she would eventually return to and work for a number of years. Running through her body of work are allegorical themes, fairytales, and mythology. This folklore comes from both the East and West, further penetrating her personal and family histories. Her work exposes humanities communal anxieties by infiltrating deeper levels of consciousness. She leaves much of her work deliberately ambiguous allowing the viewer to affix their own personal history to the work. Ting’s work at Dieu Donné spins a fragile cocoon from pulped banana stalk fiber called abaca. Punctured by staples and hung by knotted cord, these skin-like sacs represent the ravaged body. Ting also pulp painted on sheets of abaca, which she then wrote on with ink, coated with wax and assembled into book form.

Mary Ting received a BFA from Parsons School of Design and a MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has also studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing.

Workspace Program artist-in-residence 1993