Sally Lelong culls past mass-produced imagery in her sculptures and installations, in order to reveal the intricate-yet-recurring disjointed nature that occurs between word, image and movement. With communication as a muse, Lelong creates sculptures using the figurative and conceptual genres, and highlights the paradox behind gesture and figuration. Although she lives and works in New York City, the artist’s installations have appeared in an array of cities such as Dubai, Ghent, Istanbul, Limerick, London, Marseille, Nimes and Rotterdam.

“Ghosted” (2021) is the artist’s most recent series that consists of thirteen box-like structures that contain different combinations of found objects, dried plant specimens and small pieces of stone. “Lord Glentworh Smells the Trees,” for instance, includes a photograph taken by the artist that shows a close-up of Lord Glentworth’s tomb, located within St. Mary’s Cathedral in Limerick, Ireland. Other works from this series mix either string, twine or rope within an immersion of black, while the motif of a web appears throughout, as a filtering device. In 2017 Lelong exhibited “His Master’s Voice,” a stand-alone sculpture that presented four sculpted hands making the gestures of different ASL letters. These pieces were mounted upon a vinyl album that turned slowly on an old phonograph, while the large sound horn emitted nothing.

Sally Lelong received a B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in 1978. After studying for an M.F.A. at the City University of New York in 1994, Lelong was awarded three artist-in-residence opportunities: the Triangle Artist Workshop in Luminy, France (1996); the Edna St. Vincent Millay Colony in Austerlitz, New York (1998); and the Friche Belle De Mai in Marseille, France (1998). In 1980 her work was included in a group exhibition at the Ronald Feldman Gallery. She received solo exhibitions at Broome Street Windows throughout the 1980s. In 1996 she received a solo exhibition at Galerie du Tableau located in Marseille, France. In 2002 Sally Lelong opened The Phatory LLC, an artist-run art space where installations such as BLUE PSALM (2014) and READ (2015-16) received their debut.