Jennifer Ling Datchuk: Don’t Tell Me to Smile

Ruiz-Healy Art is pleased to present two solo shows from Jennifer Ling Datchuk at both our San Antonio and New York galleries. Visit our exhibitions page to view both shows.

This solo exhibition highlights her ceramic and photographic work, as well as her continued focus on gender, race, and identity. Don’t Tell Me to Smile in our New York gallery opens Thursday, November 14, with an artist reception from 6:00 – 8:00 PM. In this show, Datchuk presents porcelain sculptures and photo documentation about power, identity, and disentangling singular meanings behind objects.

Datchuk’s solo exhibitions at Ruiz-Healy Art will explore social expectations placed on girls and how this pressure translates into womanhood. In the words of the artist, this work confronts how “little girls are taught to be seen not heard, perpetuating our roles as empty vessels for the desire and fulfillment of men.” Datchuk takes on these complexities of femininity through an active recontextualization of the objects that define it. Through her championing of the handmade and her use of materials such as hair and porcelain, Datchuk seeks to rewrite the histories and traumas of womanhood and ultimately find empowerment through objects of womanhood.

Trained in craft tradition and supported by her research-based practice, Datchuk shows that no material technique is neutral as her concepts are always interwoven with her materials. By employing the historical and cultural implications of the chosen materials in her work, Datchuk uses her own personal experience and identity as a lens to understand race, gender, and identity.

Datchuk’s artwork has been part of various exhibitions throughout Texas and the United States, including Artpace, San Antonio, TX; Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Houston, TX; Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA; Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA; Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA; Seattle Design Center, Seattle, WA; Trinity University, San Antonio, TX; Black Cube Nomadic Museum, Denver, CO; Hammond Museum, North Salem, NY; and Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA.