GIRL DINNER
💬🙋♀️SUP BRATZ🔫🙈Off work late?🏋️♀️⏰RAVENOUS and want a little bit of everything??🥵🤤🥵🫨In THIS economy?!?📈💸📉👿Ditch the🦩clubstaurant line🕺🪩and come to 🎀🍽️GIRL DINNER🫒🫙at🍜CHINATOWN SOUP👯♀️👯♀️👯♀️…We’re bonding🤝over our mutual 💒love of〰️VIBEY MARTINI GLASSES🍸➕DINNER ANXIETY😖💀bcuz🧞♀️🧞♀️like many people who are mostly women🧞♀️🧞♀️we are unable to make ANY DECISIONS👩⚖️🙅♀️🙂↔️about what we want to eat😵💦…AND SO, we’ve produced🎬& curated🍒🪮a collection of🥢bitesized🫦artwork as part of the🍿pop🍾🎊culture phenomenon🙀that is “girl dinner”™️—[noun] def. The post-millennial trend to combine random foods into a satisfying meal. See also: “feral”🧟♀️—🌴👀Visitors may anticipate a🚨functionally👮♀️lawless⛓️💥indoor picnic🧺that is not paired together *AT ALL* but remains **SOMEHOW** aesthetically pleasing…👩🎨👩🎨👩🎨👩🎨This CHAOS🌪️this VARIETY🪅and our commitment to feeding you AFFORDABLE ART🏴☠️🤑is what makes this truly, a🩰girl dinner to remember💽🍴…📤SEND THIS TO5️⃣FRIENDS OR accidentally🫠skip🕳️breakfast…⚠️
🥡GIRL DINNER will include a non-edible menu care of Soup Studio resident alumni⭐️🌟💫🌠:
Megan Lee @meganjlee.art
Yen Yen Chou @yenyenflamingooo
Clare Kim @clarekimart
Sophia Meng @sophiameng
📆 save the D8z for special events🥳🪡🎟️:
7/18 | Opening Reception, 6-8 pm
7/27 | Girl Dinner Flash w/ @laynemillertattoos, 1-6 pm
8/1 | Girl Dinner Dinner w/ @cheftova, 7-9 pm (RSVP)
About the Artists
Megan’s exhibited work represents her exploration of sculptural dimensions and revisits her love for crafting. As the typical ‘girl dinner’ uses random foods around the kitchen, Megan’s pieces are made mostly out of found objects from her apartment and art studio. Evoking an evil tea party and subversive aspects of the theme, each piece contains something sinister and inedible—from a metal stem to a delectable sponge and metallic poison paints. Doilies and bows adorn plates of imperishable small bites such as the the mother of almonds (i.e., a giant almond for the almond moms). Plated sticky notes folded into paper cranes represent ongoing todolists transforming into something beautiful to be swallowed and forgotten about once completed.
Megan Lee is a Korean-American artist and graphic designer based in New York. Her art captures the imprint of a moment in time. She works intuitively, experimenting with different mediums and methods, layering colors and textures and letting chance take a role in the result. Megan attended the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and received her BFA from Pratt Institute. Recently, she participated in the Uncommon Artist Residency at the Sound View Inn in Greenport, NY, and the Chinatown Soup residency in New York, NY. Her June 2024 solo show at Chinatown Soup exhibited most recent paintings, neon pieces, and cement sculptures made for gardens cats. She has participated in group shows at Rockefeller Center, Chinatown Soup, the Dollhouse in Watermill, NY, as well as Home Gallery, formerly on Grand Street.
In line with the spirit of ‘girl dinner’—a light meal consisting of various snacks—Clare indulged in creating a smattering of smaller works across different mediums. Girl dinners are bound by no rules, and following this liberating approach enabled her to exit a comfort zone of putting paint on canvas or pencil on paper. Clare has fashioned decorative mini sculptures out of Sculpey clay, revisited embroidery (for the first time in a while), and applied new techniques to familiar mediums of paint and graphite. Embracing the ‘girl dinner’ mindset guided Clare to create new art with an attitude that prioritizes fun, exploration, and collaboration in the spirit of friendship.
Clare Kim is a self-taught artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She completed the Soup Studio residency in 2022 and had her debut solo exhibition at Soup Gallery, followed by a second showing in February 2024. Clare has participated in a number of group exhibitions, including at Paradigm Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Studio 9D, New York, NY; HBX, New York, NY; Land to Sea, Brooklyn, NY; Chinatown Soup, New York, NY.
Yen Yen’s work explores the relationship and interconnectedness between humans and nature, as well as the idea that everything has the potential to metamorphosis. Drawing inspiration from everyday life for Girl Dinner, she offers smiling rainbow raindrop ‘candies,’ disproportionate dessert replicas, and fanged representations of sugary snacks to the girl dinner spread. Yen Yen depicts microcosms of meaning and revelation hidden inside the smallest things, working across graphite, watercolor, gouache, acrylic, porcelain, epoxy, and more.
Yen Yen Chou is an artist based in Taipei, Taiwan and Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Pratt Institute with an M.F.A. in Painting and Drawing in 2018. She completed the Soup Studio residency in 2020 and has had two solo exhibitions at Soup Gallery. Yen Yen has participated in a number of group exhibitions at spaces including Dinner Gallery, New York, NY, Fridman Gallery, New York, NY; Picture Theory, New York, NY; Tchotchke Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY; Chinatown Soup, New York, NY; Gallery Cubed, New York, NY; Prince Street Gallery, New York; and SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC. Yen Yen has also curated shows at SPRING/BREAK Art Show NYC and Tutu Gallery in Brooklyn, NY.
Sophia's work for Girl Dinner showcases the coexistence of beauty and disgust. The homemade incense sculptures are a documentation of the artist's long history with disordered eating, and the ways these habits mimic the repetitive nature of ritual and meditation. The incense itself is composed of different foods (Takis, Buldak ramen, and Sour Patch Kids, to name a few) that have fed into this behavior in the past; they are displayed on sculptural coils that imitate the chandelier-like incense spirals hung in Buddhist temples, which are usually associated with a specific desire or wish for the future. The various drawings and paintings investigate the tensions between withholding and revealing, and how they interact with the beauty and grotesquery inherent to being. The quiet vignettes strive to evoke a feeling of calm eeriness, encouraging the viewer to look closer in a continual journey toward seeing and understanding.
Sophia Meng is a queer Chinese American artist interested in the boundlessly varied expressions of comfort and care. They are interested in parsing cultural references through a revolutionary lens, and use their practice to explore the struggle of contradiction, invoke productive world-building, and delve into the intricacies of how we relate to each other, ourselves, and our histories. These subjects are explored through a range of processes and mediums including installation, textiles, painting, and paper work. Sophia completed the Soup Studio residency in October 2023 and had her debut solo exhibition featuring burnable sculpture and graphite drawings at Soup Gallery.