“I think imagination can push a person forward, and it’s one of the forces that drives humans to improve both society and themselves,” says Brooklyn-based painter Ellie Kayu Ng. “It sparks the presence of possibility, and a simple example would be if no one had imagined that we could fly, airplanes would never have been invented.”
This same sense of imagination and creativity can be felt throughout Ng’s debut UK solo exhibition, Catching the Big Fish, at Twilight Contemporary. Ng spoke to East End Review about her surreal new body of work, which explores aspiration, boredom and escapism through imagined versions of the self.
The exhibition’s concept emerged from a moment of daydreaming while doing the laundry, Ng explains: “Watching the light-colour clothes spin, I suddenly thought of a ballerina’s tutu seen from above. I used to love ballet, so I imagined painting myself spinning in the reflection of a washing machine.” This visual can be seen in the painting 'Overture'.
From there, Ng’s imagination took over; the washing machine became an ocean, her domestic chores transformed into voyages and ordinary routines took on new meanings. When the cycle stopped, she remembers feeling “genuinely annoyed, like I was being pulled out of something important,” describing how “chores and adulthood responsibilities have a way of interrupting these creative moments.”
However her perspective shifted as she began to see how even the most mundane routines could be reimagined through a different lens. “The iron started to feel like a cruise moving across an ocean, like a voyage searching for a big fish, and folding became strangely satisfying. That change in perception made the whole process feel part of the same imaginative system rather than a disruption. It felt like I had gone fishing for an idea and finally caught something.”
Ng’s paintings, which she describes as the “only form of expression I’ve truly enjoyed since I was young,” are beautifully theatrical, blending cinematic fashion editorial with a comical hint of absurdity. Often renting and wearing garments she doesn’t own, the artist stages herself in imagined roles and aspirational identities, capturing these moments on canvas. This can be seen in Ng’s favourite piece, ‘Scales’, where the artist appears in a glistening blue dress that dissolves from sequins into dead fish, while live fish swim beneath her.
“Firstly, I think I look kind of cool in the painting!” she exclaims, before explaining how the work became more emotional as she painted. “When I was painting the dead fish one by one, as silly as it sounds, I started to sympathise with them more than the living ones I painted at the bottom, so I ended up giving them more painterly attention. In my opinion, they look more alive than the swimming ones I painted below, and I decided to keep that happy accident. It also coincidentally fits the stage I described earlier, where my laundry stopped, and I had a sudden realisation that I could mentally rise out of boredom.”
The idea of repetition and restlessness is at the heart of Catching the Big Fish, with Ng becoming increasingly aware of the boredom of everyday life and “things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other small daily chores that keep looping and consuming my time.”
“This made me start to wonder if this is simply what adulthood is supposed to feel like. The urge to push against this repetitiveness probably drove me to make it a subject matter for the show, as a wake-up call to myself, or a need for reorientation mentally or habit-wise after making these works.”
She continues, extending this thinking into the role of imagination as a survival mechanism - something Ng notes can be useful when kept in balance, offering “a sense of hope.” In her own life, she uses it consciously in small, practical and almost-game-like ways for goal-reaching, including a vivid example from her past: “When I was younger and wanted to swim faster in competitions, I would imagine being chased by rats underwater!”
It appears the same self-motivation also runs true today. Asked about some of her own “big fish” at the moment, she answers: “Inspiration for sure, and maybe success, even though the definition of that changes all time. I love chasing and working toward things. I enjoy the endless pursuit of merging who I am with the person I paint. Because in that process of chasing, I always grow and learn something new along the way.”
For Ng, inspiration often comes from the intensity of living in New York - a place she describes as “fast-paced and dense”, that can also make you feel “small, unseen, overlooked,” but also constantly feeds how she sees and responds to the world. At the same time, she describes painting as a way of navigating this intensity, allowing her to “balance showing and hiding myself at my own pace,” almost like a “turtle, coming out of my shell when I choose to.”
She continues, reinforcing the value of chasing something, even if it shifts. “For me, wanting something and then chasing it makes me care about it more and pushes me to learn about it in depth; along the way, I begin to understand whether it is something I truly want, and in that process of searching I also get to know myself better, while opening up possibilities I would not have expected. I love the phrase “you never know!””
Catching the Big Fish
Until 30 May 2026.
Twilight Contemporary
378 Essex Road
London
N1 3PF
