MUNTHE ART MONDAY JOCELYN SHU
Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.
I am an artist working across sculpture, drawing, and other mediums. I was originally trained as a painter, then spent 15 years working as a psychology researcher studying the human mind. Born in California, I lived in San Francisco, New York City, and the Boston area before moving to Taipei, Taiwan where I am now based and focus on my studio practice.
In my work, I take apart things that are symbolic—such as language and painting canvas—and reassemble them in altered form. For example, over several years, I have been working on a sculptural series in which I slowly cut out text from a translated version of the Dao De Jing, turning the chapters into sculptural pieces using wire and found materials. More recently, I have been working on a series of graphite drawings in which I combine observations of orchid flowers and imagined bodies.
Jocelyn is wearing Parkster top and Aruma silk skirt.
Can you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?
My work draws directly from my experience of the world as a woman. This is not something intentional in my work, but comes naturally out of creating from a place true to my voice. Someone once said that my work was “too feminine” and I hope for it to continue being so—which to me evokes a liminal state between fragility and resilience, beauty and ugliness.
What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?
There are a variety of ways in which women’s voices tend to be suppressed or overlooked—to the detriment of society as a whole. However, women in the arts have an incredible capacity to build community and amplify the voices of other women, which I have found to be very important.
Can you name some other female (artist) that inspires you and explain why they do so?
Lee Bontecou, Ruth Asawa, Gego, Louise Bourgeois—these are some female artists I feel an affinity to. Visually, I feel close to how their work “draws through space.” Perhaps this term also encapsulates a way in which these artists and their work traverse through boundaries of mediums, cultures, and roles and identities as women.
Jocelyn is wearing Parkster top and Povilla knit.
What would you like people to notice in your artwork?
Time has always been an important component of my work. I feel compelled to spend a long time working on my pieces, sometimes letting a work sit for months so that I can look at it and let it speak to me quietly about where it wants to go. I hope that viewers, too, feel compelled to spend time with my work.
Jocelyn is wearing Parkster top and Aruma silk skirt.
