Today we’d like to introduce you to John Wu.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born and grew up in China. I had received traditional painting and drawing education. I moved to LA after I completed my first year at art school. I arrived to U.S. with limited English skills and contemporary knowledge. I had attended Pasadena City College for a number of years. I learned quite a lot of things and met many friends there.
It was a period time of struggling and growing as a new immigrant and western contemporary art learner. I have been in and out school. Eventually, I received my BFA degree at Art Center College of Designing 2013 and MFA degree at CalArts in 2018. Now I am living in Chino with my wife and son.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Being an artist has been challenging and will continue to be. But there is always challenges in life. I have been at home with my son everyday since beginning of the pandemic. It is very changed to do many things, Zoom teaching, art practice, parenting, my son’s distance learning online and etc. at same place with distraction. My wife needs to go out to work everyday. I feel very privileged that I can stay with kid and work at home. It is unique experience and I see a lot of beauty in life. Sometimes, we just have to ignore the news on television.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I feel super fortunate, and I am excited to share some of my art and showing experience in 2020. Thanks so much for the support of Empty Gallery (in Hong Kong), I had participated to art fairs recently. Of course, there were virtual art fairs. One was June Art Fair that I showed some drawings from my recent project, One Day Intern. Another one was Shanghai 021 that I showed two paintings on my new project, View, Framing, and Landscape. I recently self-published the book, One Day Intern. Thanks for the support from Hammer Museum and Empty Gallery. I am glad that I can use this opportunity to share this project. This project started at the latest normal year of 2019 and suddenly shifted into the most critical year of 2020. How important of continue education will be in everyone’s life. “One Day Intern” was an idea to use my Hammer artist residency to spend one day in each department of the museum as an intern. It became a year-long journey.
I have participated in all kinds of activities at the museum including shadowing staff, setting up events, department meetings, mopping floor, watching security monitor, lunches, field trips to the bank, keeping a watchful eye on the books in the book store, presenting my art in meetings, awkward situations, and so on. I am so glad I did what I did; It gave me a chance to see and learn the stories of people who work at the museum and how they engage art with various ways. I have been taking notes and pictures and making drawings to document this experience. It is a view of the place and the people. It is a reminder to me who we are always in a community. We are living in a community. People may not look like us, have the same interests, do the same kind of work, share the same cultural background, or live in the same social class, but we all live in this community. It is a reminder to me that I can always learn something new from the people who I just met and the people I have known for a long while. “Our great problem is knowing enough about a subject to think you’re right but not enough about the subject to know you’re wrong.” – Neil deGrasse Tyson
Contact Info:
- Website: www.johnwustudio.com
- Instagram: @learningartandartlearning
- Other: https://emptygallery.com
