MARLBORO — Marlboro College is pleased to present an exhibit by Fay Ku, the Taiwan-born, New York City-based artist whose work connects with past and present cultural histories.
The exhibit, titled “Ordinary Mouths Made to Sing,” will take place in Drury Gallery from Oct. 12 to Nov. 15, with an opening reception on Oct. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
“Ordinary Mouths Made to Sing” will feature recent mixed-media drawings on mylar informed by Chinese folklore told to Fay Ku as a child growing up in the American Midwest. The exhibit draws its title from the poem “Notes on Longing,” by Tina Chang.
Recalling East Asian paintings where figures are isolated against untouched paper or silk, Ku's drawings of figures in imagined environments speak to how ancient folklore can shape the way we see ourselves in the present.
Fay Ku is the winner of the Marlboro College galleries' spring 2019 open call, juried by Marlboro College students, resulting in this unusual exhibit. The artist's figurative works in “Ordinary Mouths Made to Sing” begin intuitively, but include fine-labor intensive details and unlikely material processes such as gilding and flocking.
The recipient of a Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grant, Fay Ku has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, New Britain Museum of American Art, and Snite Museum of Art in South Bend, Indiana.
The artist has also participated in several artist residencies, including Wave Hill, Lower East Side Printshop, Tamarind Institute, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. She holds both an M.F.A. in studio art and an M.S. in art history from the Pratt Institute.