ARTIST STATEMENT

I am influenced by daily observations and experiences related to my immediate geographic surroundings.  This allows me to form a connectedness with the natural environment in a phenomenological manner.  My practice addresses the tension between the familiar and the foreign, touching upon topics of topography, borders, and place, informed by my experience living in-between cultures: between China, The United States, and The Netherlands.  Instead of obvious cross-cultural patterns, I am interested in the ones that are quiet, small, and nuanced.  I find the need to piece together these tiny patterns and moments so that they formulate a poetry of the quotidian. 

BIOGRAPHY

Ding Ren is an artist and writer, born in China, who is currently based between Washington, DC and Amsterdam, NL.  She received her MFA from George Washington University in 2009.  With a field-driven approach, her practice examines cross-cultural patterns at the junction between the foreign and the familiar.  Recent projects Topographic Mindset and the waves would welcome it beneath the sea use analogue photographic processes to address geography, borders, and place in a phenomenological manner.  Her work has been exhibited at Area 405 (Baltimore, MD), Arlington Arts Center (Arlington, VA), Amsterdams Centrum voor Fotografie (Amsterdam, NL), CONNERSMITH (Washington, DC), Kulter Proeflokaal (Amsterdam, NL), Künstlerhaus Dortmund (DE), Yuchengco Museum (Manila, PH), Transformer (Washington, DC), Upominki (Rotterdam, NL) and the Smithsonian Archives of American Art (Washington, DC), amongst others.  Her written work has been published for Artslant Worldwide, Urbanite, and Radar Redux.  She participated in Maryland Art Place’s Critic’s Residency Program in 2006, mentored by Eleanor Heartney and Irving Sandler.  In 2012, she spoke in the Facing Forward lecture series organized by the Stedelijk Museum, University of Amsterdam, de Appel, SMBA, W139, and Metropolis M and was a short-list finalist for the Frieze Foundation’s Emdash Award.  In 2013 Ren was a Provisions Library Research Fellow (Washington, DC) and in 2014, completed a residency at The Guesthouse (Cork, IE) and was a shortllst finalist for the Sondheim Award (Baltimore, MD).