Student Spotlight: Vivian Chiu ‘19

The Student Spotlight series aims to highlight the work of current MFA students, asking them to share thoughts on their practice by answering curated and peer-submitted questions.

Vivian Chiu ‘19 is an MFA Visual Arts student in her first year.

What themes or subjects are you currently addressing in your work?

Right now I've been focusing on the idea of labyrinths, literal and metaphorical, as well as the body as a landscape. I am currently trying to combine very geometric and mathematical shapes into organic forms. Ideas of labor, re/suppression, and individual versus cultural identity are also underlying themes in my work.
 

What materials are you working with at the moment?

I am a woodworker by trade (I studied Furniture Design at the RISD) and I've been working on some wood sculptures, but I am trying to branch out into laser cutting plexiglass, using light as a material, and a little bit of photography.
 

Who are artists or works of art that inspire you? Who are contemporary artists that are doing interesting work?

I'm reading Robert Irwin's biography,Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees, and it talks about the evolution of his career from painting to using space and light as material. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I abandon object-making to create ephemeral experiences. But not yet!
 

What challenges do you face in your practice?

I am constantly asked to break out of using wood, but I just realized I've been woodworking for 10 years! It’s like asking a painter not to paint—Maybe that painter will dabble in something else for a little while, but they’ll always go back to painting. I've breathed in so much wood dust that I can't escape it (it also brings me a lot of joy to cut things precisely). My work is very labor-intensive and it’s hard to complete projects quickly, but I’m just focused on experimenting with new forms and techniques right now.
 

Who are artists or works of art that inspire you? Who are contemporary artists that are doing interesting work?

I worked for Ursula von Rydingsvard for five years prior to grad school. She is an amazing human and an absolute inspiration. I’m inspired by many other artists that work in wood, such as Leonardo Drew and Martin Puryear. Artists I'm looking at right now: the minimalists (Robert Irwin, Smithson, Morris, Heizer, Tony Smith, Eva Hesse), op-artists (Bridget Riley, Vasarely, Carlos Cruz-Diez), Man Ray's photographs of mathematical models, and many, many more. I just stumbled upon a performance artist named Yoann Bourgeois and his work completely blew me away. It is what my dreams are made of.
 

What has been your favorite class at Columbia so far?

My favorite class at Columbia so far has been Art Criticism with John Miller (it’s actually a class at Barnard). We read art criticism written by artists like Yvonne Rainer, Robert Smithson, and Mary Kelly. It’s a great way to learn about critical theory in comparison with the art that was being made back then.
 

How do you think artists can continue growing as artists?

Persistence is Key.

A quick endnote by Philip Leider in his catalogue essay to Robert Irwin’s 1996 show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: "What stays in the museum is only the art-object, not valueless, but not the value of art. The art is what has happened to the viewer.”