A Name to Know: Antonia Kuo
Our monthly spotlight on a rising artist
Antonia Kuo is an artist you should know. Antonia stretches the perceived limits of ideas and processes surrounding photography, so much so that she developed her own process which is akin to painting with photochemical materials. Sculpture, whether its the frame surrounding a 2D work or a free-standing object, compliments and furthers the concepts surrounding her inventive mode of creating. There is a contrasting push and pull of what Antonia is able to control within the work vs what happens on its own, embracing nature’s entropy to yield cohesively rendered and tranquil surfaces. This weekend, Antonia’s 2-person exhibition with the venerable Martin Wong at the Frye Museum concludes, with a slew of group and solo exhibitions planned for the next year in New York and beyond.
Name: Antonia Kuo
Mode: Photography, Painting, Sculpture
Homebase: Manhattan, NY
INSIDE THE STUDIO
You incorporate various modes of creating into single works, whether it's painting, photography, sculpture, metal-work, etc. Is there one medium you find yourself spending the most amount of time with?
I've always given myself several outlets in the studio so I can jump from one thing to another, keeping my energy and interest in momentum -- each process has different materialities and speeds, but lately I find myself focusing predominantly on mixing the photochemical paintings with mixed media, making multi-panel pieces. The sculptures are usually made in intensive bursts at my family foundry, then coalesce slower back in studio when I bring all the objects and ephemera back to New York. There's a kind of collage mentality that runs across all the work where objects from different time scales and materialities come together to create a new form.
What is your least favorite aspect of being an artist?
Emails!
What is one way you continue to push your practice forward?
The vitality in the work is to be consistently edging on the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable or strange. Once I get too comfortable or actions feel rote, I switch modes or introduce new variables to be in a present dialogue with my materials.
OUTSIDE THE STUDIO
Your work has taken some influence from your parents' differing belief systems. Do you subscribe to a system of faith?
I grew up without religion (my father was a Roman Catholic priest in Italy for almost a decade, then became a psychoanalyst after losing his faith, my mother is Buddhist). I think in the abstract, making artwork is a type of communion with the unknown, striving toward something undefinable and ultimately unreachable. My father told me in the priesthood they questioned the existence of God the most -- positing that essentially, if you are so deeply invested in something you will have the most fraught and undetermined relationship to it.
Is there any other activity you often engage with outside of the studio?
Having an 11 month old baby boy has pretty much (happily) gobbled up most of my time outside of studio. The most rejuvenating thing for me and my partner is getting together with close friends and loved ones in our spare time.
How does your day begin? How does your day end?
My day begins when my son Nino wakes up and we usually romp around for the first hour or so of being up. The day ends similarly lately, I pretty much go to sleep when he does.