Cathy Lu
My work manipulates traditional Chinese objects as a way to deconstruct the assumptions we have about Asian American identity and cultural authenticity. By creating ceramic sculptures and installations, I explore what it means to be both Asian and American, while not being entirely accepted as either. Unpacking how experiences of immigration, cultural hybridity and assimilation become part of the larger American identity is central to my work.
I have made work comparing the cultural authenticity of vases in the Asian Art Museum SF with their replicas in Chinatown. I cast fruits from Chinese neighborhood markets as a way to talk about the struggle for immigrant communities to belong in the U.S. More recently, I have been reimagining garden creation myths like the Garden of Eden and the Immortal Peach Garden as a way to explore the U.S. as both a utopian and dystopian space for historically excluded communities struggling to belong.
Ceramics as a material is a contradiction in itself – of being both hard and fragile. I’m interested in my work embodying the contradictions of being Asian American, of being both invisible and hypervisible, at times attractive and repulsive, foriegn and familiar.
Cathy Lu (b. 1984 in Miami, FL) is a ceramics based artist that manipulates traditional Chinese art imagery and presentation as a way to deconstruct the assumptions we have about Chinese identity and cultural authenticity. By creating ceramic based sculptures and installations, she explores what it means to be both Asian and American, while not being entirely accepted as either. Unpacking how experiences of immigration, cultural hybridity, and cultural assimilation become part of American identity is central to her work.
She received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and her BA & BFA from Tufts University. She has participated in artist in residence programs at Root Division, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Recology SF, and the Archie Bray Foundation. Her work has been exhibited at Johansson Projects, Somarts, Aggregate Space, and Chinese Culture Center. She was a 2019 Asian Cultural Council/ Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation Fellow, and named one of five 2022 winners for the prestigious SECA Award. She currently teaches at California College of the Arts and Mills College.
Beyond the garden’s borders: A walk-through with installation artist Cathy Lu | August 11, 2022 by Emily Wilson
“Ceramicist Cathy Lu says she was thinking about garden creation myths when she dreamed up “Interior Garden,” the latest exhibition to be part of the Chinese Culture Center’s “XianRui (Fresh & Sharp)” series that features work by pioneering, mid-career artists of Chinese descent.” LINK
FRIEZE “Cathy Lu’s All-Asian-American Cry-In” | July 28, 2022 by Vivienne Liu
“The odd location of the scrappy Chinese Culture Center – on the third floor of the skyscraping, four-star Hilton Hotel in San Francisco’s Chinatown, as though caught between worlds – resulted from fervent negotiations between real estate developers and community activists. In this contested space marked by difference and inspired by the recent global upsurge in anti-Asian hate crimes and white supremacist rhetoric, Cathy Lu’s solo exhibition, ‘Interior Garden’, stages four ceramic installations that explore the surrealistic, humorous and grotesque truths behind the so-called ‘American Dream’ that promises a linear path to success for all who work for it. What beauty, and what horror, propels the growth of this garden?” LINK
Artsy.net “7 Asian American Artists Using Ceramics to Break New Ground” | May 17, 2022 by Harley Wong
“It feels endless,” Cathy Lu said, describing her relationship with ceramics. “Every time I work with clay, it’s always changing or I experience something different.…It connects across cultures.” Lu is currently featured in four exhibitions across the Bay Area and was one of five artists awarded SFMOMA’s 2022 SECA Art Award, which will see her exhibit at the San Francisco institution this December, accompanied by a publication. LINK
SF Chronicle “5 Bay Area artists named 2022 winners for prestigious SECA Award” | May 3, 2022 by Aidin Vaziri
“The winners are multidisciplinary artist Binta Ayofemi, visual artists Maria Guzmán Capron and Marcel Pardo Ariza, ceramics-based artist Cathy Lu, and painter Gregory Rick.” LINK
SF Examiner “Bay Area ceramics artist Cathy Lu contrasts American dream with racism and exclusion” | January 25, 2022 by Anita Wong
“Using the traditional Chinese garden as a focus point, Bay Area ceramics artist Cathy Lu contrasts the promises of the American dream with the realities of racism and exclusion in an insightful and affecting new exhibition at San Francisco’s Chinese Culture Center.” LINK
NYTIMES / SF ARTS MONTHLY, “Gallery Highlights” | March 2019 by Christian L Frock
“In Her Kind” Anna Fidler + Cathy Lu…seem to declare a new world order where feminists call the shots…” LINK
KQED Arts, Cathy Lu’s ‘Peach Garden’ Steams Up The Outer Sunset | September 28, 2018 by Sarah Hotchkiss
“I wanted to give space to girls, so I replaced all the boys with girls. I like to have the girls fragmented physically to portray ideas of multiple identities, and fragmented selves. I’m also interested in ideas of ‘play’ for girls, cultural ideas of boys ‘playing’ versus girls ‘playing’, and the intersection between ‘play’ and violence.” LINK
Asia Society, Cultural Identity in Art: Interview with Artist Cathy Lu 2017
“I wanted to give space to girls, so I replaced all the boys with girls. I like to have the girls fragmented physically to portray ideas of multiple identities and fragmented selves. I’m also interested in ideas of ‘play’ for girls, cultural ideas of boys ‘playing’ versus girls ‘playing’, and the intersection between ‘play’ and violence.” LINK
China Daily, “Artist explores identity through recyclable trash” | 2017 by Lia Zhu
“Her inspiration comes from her family members, who immigrated to the US from Taiwan. She said she still remembers how her dad created his own dishes by substituting ingredients, like replacing white cabbage with a different kind of lettuce. LINK
Artists Take Over SF Parking Lot for Satirical Art Fair | May 2016 by Kelly Whalen and Sarah Hotchkiss
“Artists brought both satirical and earnest displays to the gathering, including a nail art salon where Cathy Lu and Brooke Westfall decorated and applied just one acrylic nail per customer.” LINK
In the Rocky Mountains, an Artist Residency is Launching Careers | Dec 2016 Casey Lesser
Previously, Lu had only worked in cities, which limited her practice and required her to simplify her process. At the ranch, she has access to spacious studios and various new techniques, like specialty firings, which she learned from the staff and fellow artists. LINK
Dissolve Blog, Interview with Cathy Lu at ‘Recology’ | September 20, 2011 by Matt Goldberg
“Working with all the different materials, having to figure out and understand each material, or take it apart from the thing it was attached to. I’ve done clay residencies before, and that’s difficult in other ways, but you buy the clay, you use the clay. And whatever you do, maybe there’s other stuff with the clay, but you’re gonna use clay. Whereas here it could just be anything, and it’s really challenging to not be in control. To not know what the final object will be composed of, and to be really attached to certain materials, without knowing what to do with them.” LINK
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