Raising Children for Strangers | Fay Ku

Scholz Family Works on Paper Gallery
August 28 through October 23, 2016

"Raising Children for Strangers" is a special exhibition put together with the collaboration of the University of Notre Dame's Department of English, the Liu Institute of Asian Studies, and the Snite Museum of Art. It features the latest work of the Brooklyn-based, Taiwanese-American artist Fay Ku. Wondrous and strange, these seven pieces are hybrid works of art that, to use the artist's own words, "adopt visual tropes from both Western art and found images from social media to create tableaux that are open-ended narratives." Museum goers will find exquisitely drawn figures and icons that combine traditional techniques from Chinese brush painting with those of natural science catalogs, Buddha poses with orthodox angels, contemporary Asian women with those held under the male gaze that we associate with images of women in Polynesia. The references are broad and intellectually stimulating. Works are mix media on layered sheets of mylar. They include "Before the S-Exile," "O Great Bird in the Sky," "Throne," "Fontainebleau," "Three Eves," "High Touch," and "Desire is What You See Everyday."