Artist Gwen Yen Chiu was born in Michigan. She is a sculptor of Taiwanese heritage producing in the traditions of abstraction and welded metal that our community has come to know predominantly through the art of Richard Hunt – a mentor and friend to the artist whom she assisted in his Chicago studio. Yet, unlike Hunt, who was inspired by the upward forms of nature, Yen Chiu is influenced by the expressive movement of language.

She states, “My mother, who immigrated to the United States, was very adamant about me, being born in the United States, to not lose my Taiwanese heritage. This not only included her teaching me Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, but also included her giving me lessons in Chinese Calligraphy which started at the age of 5. Within the ritual of writing the same character over and over hundreds of times, I found a sense of rebellion to take these characters and reinvent them with an extra flick of the brush in the wrong direction and being a little over the top with performative gestures. This memory and experience continues to heavily influence my current creative process – taking characters and severing them from their traditional meanings, as an attempt to understand my identity in the Asian diaspora. Combining my training in metal and Chinese calligraphy, my work has not only been an ode to these feelings, but to my own personal history, manifesting as works of dynamic movement and gestures.”

Yen Chiu’s ability to translate the movement of language into equally expressive metal is remarkable. In the exhibition, Language as Form: Calligraphy & Sculpture by Gwen Yen Chiu, these influences and translations become evident; viewers will be able to move between ink and metal, drawing and sculpture, to see the dynamic relationship of the artforms individually and in relationship to one another.