Vivian Chiu | Artist
Brooklyn, NY, USA

Coming from Hong Kong—a city with a fascinating combination of Eastern and Western cultures—I was always curious about juxtapositions functioning within a single entity. As an artist, I attempt to mix chaos and order, geometric and organic forms, and spontaneous and systematic techniques to create intricate wood pieces. My sculptures represent attempts to formalize coincidental happenings through repetitive, labor intensive processes. I am also interested in the concept of “flow” and use labor not only as a form of catharsis, but also to pay homage to my family’s history in the manufacturing business.

My goals for the ITE residency were to revisit ideas from earlier in my career that I had never been able to accomplish without adequate facilities. I wanted to take advantage of all the tools in the University
of the Arts woodshop and create some highly technical projects. For the past few years I have been drawn to ideas of perception and the optical nature of three-dimensional objects and have been experimenting with making works that visually transform as the viewer moves around them. I was able to research new methods with wood and paint to achieve these effects. This residency ultimately allowed me to do new experiments with wood in an ongoing effort to unify the fields of art, craft, and design.