"Anne Chu was born in 1959 in New York City. Her parents came from China, and her father was a mathematics professor at Columbia University. When she was in middle school, her family moved to Westchester County, north of the city. She graduated from the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1982 and received an MFA from Columbia University in 1985".
Chu's works, influenced by the combination of eastern and western elements, create a "strong dichotomy between that which is modern and ancient, abstract and figurative, unknown and fantastical". She applies multiple techniques that "unite form, content, and color" in a "seemingly effortless, cohesive manner". Despite being primarily a sculptor, "creating monumental works from wood, ceramic, and papier-mâché", “Chu also makes watercolors and monotypes”. In these mediums she chooses the themes of "landscapes, castles, and knights", creating exotic works that seem abstract but thematically connect her works through figurative elements.
“Ms. Chu was the recipient of the 2001 Penny McCall award and was awarded grants from the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation and the Joan Mitchell Foundation”. “Her work has been widely exhibited, including at the Dallas Art Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art”.
Artistic style
Despite being a Chinese American, Anne Chu does not identify closely with Chinese culture. Instead, her sculptures "reflect a thorough knowledge of world art, much of it coming from Western sources and years of going to galleries and museums". Chu's focus on art history has resulted in a singular vision, affecting her works which "place a contemporary sensibility in genuine dialogue with the past", giving an "ad hoc, but never excessively informal, sense of the present".
According to Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson, a curator at the Berkeley Museum of Art, Anne Chu explores issues in sculpture and painting by "infusing painting into materials that are themselves used in unexpected ways. By shifting conventional expectations of the appearance of sculpture, the artist allows a reconsideration of the familiar." For example, she uses "traditional Chinese artifacts as a base from which to work". She has remade "T'ang dynasty ceramic funerary figures, sculpted Asian and Western–inspired landscapes, and painted luminous watercolors characterized by a subtle tension between abstraction and figuration".
Chu's work consists largely of bold mixed-media sculptures in "wood, metal, resin, fabric, leather, or porcelain, as well as delicate watercolors and ink-based works on paper". She often combined "figures and animals with elements drawn from folklore; just as often, however, her work could be nearly unrecognizable from one piece to the next. In deliberately remaking herself this way, Chu developed a unique visual language, celebrated in more than 30 solo exhibitions over a 25-year period".
Works and publications
Ballplayer on Horse
In Chu's Ballplayer on Horse (1998), "an elaborately carved and painted male figure sits atop a bronze horse". Bronze horses, together with their riders, are often mass-produced, accompanying a nobleman in burial as the representation of his lifelong possession. "Chu's use of a figure mounted on a horse results from a general interest in these types of burial figures". Knowing that different materials create a distinct visual presence, Chu pairs bronze with wood. In this sculpture, "the bronze horse shares a patchy, expressive painting style with the figure. Head cocked to one side, one hand on his chest and the other raised in an extended gesture, the ballplayer is poised to throw". Their symbolic gestures suggest that horses and their riders not only indicate an individual's status in ancient China, but also serve as a necessity for political survival.
Small Landscape (1999) Chu also creates watercolors in a sensuous fashion that the "subjects, figures, and landscapes" are subtly addressed. "If Chu's Small Landscape (1999) were displayed without the title and removed from the context of her other works, one would take the drawing as purely abstract". True to the medium of watercolor, it is loosely painted in bright colors at the bottom of its animated and elongated shapes. Knowing Chu's "idiosyncratic color schemes", "the juxtaposition of yellow with lavender, red with olive green, and rose with chocolate brown" may refer to "a waterfall flowing through a rough mountain landscape, with the sun burning through a foggy morning".
