On the Cover:
Hu Xiaoyuan, A Day in Heaven (detail), 2021. Mixed media on wood brick and aluminum, ink, raw silk, thread, dried fruit, and rebar, 160 x 20.5 x 13 cm. Photo: Courtesy the artist
Editor’s Letter:
A concern with autobiography runs through this issue like a stream that, in parts, courses underground. Of Goan descent and living in Australia, Keg de Souza draws on her personal circumstances in creating her installations and performances, most recently tracing the histories of various plants and their migratory legacies. For a recent museum show, Abigail DeVille made works from items important to her grandmother—her bed, her perfume bottles—and also examined the borough, the Bronx, in which she grew up. And, though Hu Xiaoyuan is a rigorously abstract sculptor, her practice is, as she acknowledges, informed by her own life. Her take on the personal is, however, distinctly Chinese: “The integration of geography, life experiences, and humanities forms the basis for all of my works, and it also provides support for my seemingly individualized life. But actually, my ‘individual’ impulses are the background of my ‘group’ because they have always been two sides of an organic whole.” Jim Condron begins his engaging interview, in which he traces the development of his sculptural practice out of his work as a painter, by stating that his mother “was extremely important to my development as an artist.” Even Oscar Tuazon, who fuses the architectural with the functional to make abstract and not obviously autobiographical pieces, discusses how moving back to western Washington State, where he grew up, has reshaped his approach to art-making. The works of this issue’s artists differ considerably from each other, yet together they remind us that our stories never really leave us. —Daniel Kunitz, Editor-in-Chief
