Nick Dong 董承濂

Currently lives and works in Oakland, CA, and Taipei, Nick Dong is a multidisciplinary artist whose experiential mixed-media sculptures, wearable objects, and installations combine an advanced knowledge of materials and technique with a gift for elevating an audience’s experience beyond the optical. By seamlessly integrating sophisticated engineering and metalsmithing components, supernatural movements, light, sound, and various interactive or situational strategies, Dong’s practice creates a fully immersive event, only complete once a participant’s encounter is initiated.

Dong holds a BFA in Mixed Media and Painting from Tung-Hai University in Taichung, Taiwan and an MFA in Metalsmithing in Jewelry from the University of Oregon. He has been featured in media outlets including CBS’s Evening Magazine, 7x7 magazine, KQED’s The California Report, and numerous appearances in Metalsmith magazine, which most recently highlighted Dong’s work in a June 2013 feature article by Brett Levine.

Dong’s work has swiftly gained international attention, with an exhibition record which belies the artist’s youth. Since the early 1990s his work has been shown extensively in galleries in Taiwan and throughout the United States. In 2003, Dong’s work was included in the Cheongju International Craft Biennial in South Korea; in 2008, he was one of twenty metal artists from thirteen countries selected for “Artitude 2008” at Kunstbanken Museum in Hamar, Norway.

In 2012, Dong was one of 40 artists born since 1972 chosen to appear in “40 Under 40: Craft Futures,” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. The Washington Post review of “40 under 40” noted: “Illumination comes from Nick Dong’s ‘Enlightenment Room’ installation... Dong’s room challenges the viewer to forget about traditional categories and revel in the handcrafted.“

In 2016, San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum invited Dong to exhibit his large-scale mixed-media work “Patterns from Heaven and Earth.” Dong was recognized by the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts with a solo show, “Specular Reflection,” in 2017. Dong gained even greater visibility with his 2021 solo exhibition “Divine Immersion, The Experiential Art of Nick Dong” at the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, CA, and the same year participated in the exhibition “GLOW” in The Exploratorium Museum of San Francisco, CA. In 2024 Dong present "Nick Dong: 11 to 88," the inauguration exhibition of his Auspicious 88 series in the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, CA.

Education

2009 Northern California Public Art Academy

2002 MFA: Metalsmithing and Jewelry. University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA

1996 BFA: Mixed Medias and Paintings. Tung-Hai University, Taichung, Taiwan

Solo Exhibitions

2025 Nick Dong: Auspicious, Qualia Contemporary Art, Palo Alto, CA, USA

2024 Nick Dong: 11 to 88, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, USA

2023 Auspicious 88, VOICES Art Fair, Chambers Fine Art, POPOP Taipei, Taiwan

2022 Re-sensing the Cosmos, ChiNi Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2021 Divine Immersion-The Experiential Art of Nick Dong, USC Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, CA, USA

Mandala, ChiNi Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2019 LightScapes: Re-envisioning the Shanshuihua, Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Mendsmith Project, Mercury Twenty Gallery, Oakland, CA, USA

2018 Matter - Antimatter, Mercury Twenty Gallery, Oakland, CA, USA

Diamond Sutra, Asia Modern Museum, Taichung, Taiwan

2017 Circular Heaven - Square Earth, National Taichung Theater, Taichung, Taiwan

Specular Reflection, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan

Longing Cloud, Cloud Gate Dance Company, Taipei, Taiwan

2016 Patterns from Heaven & Earth - Artist Drawing Club, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA

On Model of Contemplation, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA, USA

2015 Cosmic Dance, Asia Modern Museum, Taichung, Taiwan

2014 Be-long En-lighten, Mercury 20 Gallery, Oakland, CA, USA

2013 To come to knowledge you have not, you must go by a way in which you know not, Michael Ku Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

2006 Hyper Physical, Gears Tousignant Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA

2003 Be Enlightened, Atelier Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA

1993 Dedicated to Age Twenty, Association of Art Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan

Selected Group Exhibitions

2024 Diamond Sutra: Beyond All Illusions, Chishang Barn Art Museum, Taitung; Hsun Chiang Gallery, Chishang, Taitung; Hsun Chiang Gallery, Tainan, Taiwan

2021 GLOW, The Exploratorium, San Francisco, CA, USA

2018 Uneasy Beauty, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA, USA

2015 California Now, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA, USA

2014 I’m Your Man, Curated by Lauren Kalman and Milee Tibbs, ISE Cultural Foundation, New York City, NY, USA

2012 40 Under 40 - Craft Futures, Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

2008 Artitude 2008, KUNSTBANKEN Museum, Hamar, Norway

The Thinking Body, Curated by Kate Wagle and Anya Kivarkis, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, San Francisco, CA, USA

2007 In Situ, Curated by Joe Wood and Lisa Tung, MASSART, Boston, MA, USA

2005 Well Done - The Art in Design, The Design in Art, MOCA Taipei, Taipei, Taiwan

2003 Cheongju International Craft Biennial 2003, Cheongju Arts Center, Cheongju City, Korea

Awards / Publications / Scholarships

2019 Artist Lecture for Maine College of Art.

2018 MainStage Speaker for Society of North American Goldsmith conference Portland OR, 2018

2016 Keynote Speaker for The Seattle Metals Guild Symposium 2016

Maker Faire Bay Area 2016, Five Editor’s Choice Awards

2015 The Mend-Smith Project, “Space of Production” an AIR program in CCCD Asheville, NC

Awarded best in show in Enamel from CALIFORNIA NOW exhibition at Richmond Art Center

2014 Feature on 7x7 Magazine on December issue.

2013 Feature exhibition on Business Weekly of Taiwan July issue.

Featured on Metalsmith Magazine 2013 June issue, article by Brett Levine

2008 Fabled Adornment series collected by National Museum of Norway

2004 Selected from a juried competition by Lard Books “1000 RINGS” and was referenced inside the covers.

Confluence, new works and installation by Nick Dong” was presented on the DateBook of San Francisco Chronicle.

2003 Interviewed by CBS’s Evening Magazine about the “10 Rings” class taught in The Crucible.

Awarded “Special Citation” from South Korea’s Cheongju International Craft Biennial 2003

2002 Metalsmith Magazine 2002 Juried exhibition in print with special mention in the Jury Roundtable.

2001 Graduate Teaching Fellowship, Art department faculty nominated merit scholarship, University of Oregon.

1996 Class Valedictorian, Fine Art Department's top graduating senior in Tunghai University

1994 Chinese Calligraphy Scholarship

1993 San Cai Art Foundation Scholarship for Young Artist

Professional Experience

2016 - Stevenson Street San Francisco Artistic Improvement Project — Project Manger

2013 - studioDONG — Founder / Chief Creative Officer

2011 - 2017 City of Oakland Public Art Advisory Committee — Co-Chair

2008 - 2014 California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA — Instructor - Senior Project

2001 - 2002 University of Oregon Department of Art, Eugene, OR — Instructor - Introduction of Metalsmithing and Jewelry