Anne Chu
08 Nov - 20 Dec 2008
ANNE CHU
November 8 - December 20 2008
547 W 21 Street
303 Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition of new sculpture by Anne Chu.
Utilizing a combinative method that relies on the reasoning of drawing, along with a structuralist’s eye for separation of forms, Chu creates a world inhabited by ethnic and historically-inspired figures, landscapes and animals, where the indefinable provenance of the figuration mirrors our own tenuous connection to the antiquity of history.
In "Left of a Pair", the ambiguous nature of the subject is directly reflected by the choice to work against the accepted characteristics of a certain material. Cast into aluminum from wax and paper, the final piece's seemingly delicate texture belies its substantive weight. While the figure's pose is halfway between giving and receiving, the figuration itself is a means to explore abstraction as a questioning of form and psychology. In "Hanging Goat", the materials are again "reversed". as aluminum takes on an appearance somewhere between concrete and styrofoam. By breaking down the animal's appendages into stolid blocks, the form's own space is fragmented and reassembled, with the abstraction of figure and material a direct corollary to one another. By placing seemingly contrary materials and figures together, Chu is able to re-imagine her subject matter outside its historical context, reconfiguring the way it is approached and disseminated.
A series titled “Birds of Prey” look on from the right side of the gallery. Rendered from computerized drawings, the intimacy of their relative scale disguises the staunch lines in their descriptions and gazes. Intricately assembled, the birds stand on irregular pedestals, perched in perpetual anticipation. The kaleidoscopic view through "From a Hanging Garden" gives a certain visual kinesthesia to an inert object. Through these fractured views, the disorienting reality of the natural world is brought to light.
Anne Chu has had recent solo exhibitions at the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art as well as the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro. Her work was included in “The Puppet Show” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the 54th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh; “Sculptors Drawing”, Aspen Art Museum; “Figures and Fields”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and “fünfmalskulptur” Westfaelischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany. Early one-person exhibitions include the Berkeley Art Museum, California; Indianapolis Art Museum; and the Dallas Museum of Art. “Anne Chu: Modes and Manners”, a special artist’s book featuring 65 of the artist’s watercolors was published by Scalo in 2006.
November 8 - December 20 2008
547 W 21 Street
303 Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition of new sculpture by Anne Chu.
Utilizing a combinative method that relies on the reasoning of drawing, along with a structuralist’s eye for separation of forms, Chu creates a world inhabited by ethnic and historically-inspired figures, landscapes and animals, where the indefinable provenance of the figuration mirrors our own tenuous connection to the antiquity of history.
In "Left of a Pair", the ambiguous nature of the subject is directly reflected by the choice to work against the accepted characteristics of a certain material. Cast into aluminum from wax and paper, the final piece's seemingly delicate texture belies its substantive weight. While the figure's pose is halfway between giving and receiving, the figuration itself is a means to explore abstraction as a questioning of form and psychology. In "Hanging Goat", the materials are again "reversed". as aluminum takes on an appearance somewhere between concrete and styrofoam. By breaking down the animal's appendages into stolid blocks, the form's own space is fragmented and reassembled, with the abstraction of figure and material a direct corollary to one another. By placing seemingly contrary materials and figures together, Chu is able to re-imagine her subject matter outside its historical context, reconfiguring the way it is approached and disseminated.
A series titled “Birds of Prey” look on from the right side of the gallery. Rendered from computerized drawings, the intimacy of their relative scale disguises the staunch lines in their descriptions and gazes. Intricately assembled, the birds stand on irregular pedestals, perched in perpetual anticipation. The kaleidoscopic view through "From a Hanging Garden" gives a certain visual kinesthesia to an inert object. Through these fractured views, the disorienting reality of the natural world is brought to light.
Anne Chu has had recent solo exhibitions at the Miami Museum of Contemporary Art as well as the Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro. Her work was included in “The Puppet Show” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; the 54th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh; “Sculptors Drawing”, Aspen Art Museum; “Figures and Fields”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and “fünfmalskulptur” Westfaelischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany. Early one-person exhibitions include the Berkeley Art Museum, California; Indianapolis Art Museum; and the Dallas Museum of Art. “Anne Chu: Modes and Manners”, a special artist’s book featuring 65 of the artist’s watercolors was published by Scalo in 2006.