About the Artist
Gwen Yen Chiu is a Chicago based Taiwanese-American artist. Born in the United States, her work has been an exploration about home, belonging and identity in the Asian diaspora. Her metal sculptures are heavily influenced by her upbringing in Chinese Calligraphy and painting. Yen Chiu initially attended The Rhode Island School of Design for fashion design, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, receiving her BFA with a focus in sculpture from Chicago in 2018. Yen Chiu's 12 ft welded aluminum sculpture 'Thought Vortex' was awarded the Chicago Sculpture Exhibit's Richard Hunt Award in 2021. Her work has been shown at EXPO Chicago, The Union League Club, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art and the Koehnline Museum of Art. She is currently represented by McCormick Gallery in Chicago.
““Starting at the age of 5, my immigrant mother started training me in traditional Chinese Calligraphy and painting, in hopes for me to not lose my Taiwanese heritage. I vividly remember the feeling of wanting to rebel (for the practice of Chinese calligraphy exists in repetition) within the ritual of writing the same character over and over hundreds and thousands of times. I found this rebellion during that time by taking characters and reinventing them with an extra flick of the brush in the wrong direction and being over the top with performative gestures during my lessons. This memory continues to heavily influence my current creative process – transforming ink into metal, finding symbiosis between form and text, drawing and sculpture. My work has not only been an ode to these ideas and memories, but furthermore, as an attempt to understand my identity in the Asian diaspora, manifesting as works of dynamic movement and gestures.”
— Gwen Yen Chiu, 2025
