Yowshien Kuo

September, 2024

Yowshien Kuo is an artist based in St. Louis, Missouri. He uses the figure, most often Asian figures, to examine stories, lies, and speculations about American history as well as his own person narrative. Kuo’s studio practice is grounded by reading and research, ranging from contemporary poetry to greek philosophy, and is further strengthened by prioritizing physical activities, like weight lifting. He has an invested interest in self optimization when it comes to the ways he moves through the world, which melds with his studio practice. Kuo recently made a transition into a new body of work and is about to move into a studio at his home. The new work has allowed him to become more cogent about what he wants to say, and he’s strategically consolidating in order to best serve his practice. Yowshien Kuo’s work is tightly rendered, acutely aware of color and dialed in to cultural symbolism. We sat down, virtually, to discuss his approach to bad days (he turns them into good days!) and how he is constantly reassessing not only his own paintings, but also the stories he has been told – about himself, his country, and ultimately, his value.

Interview between Amy Boone-McCreesh and Yowshien Kuo

AMY: WHERE IS YOUR CURRENT STUDIO AND HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN THERE?

YOWSHIEN: It’s in St. Louis, Missouri. I’ve been here for about a year. Coming up on a year. It’s my first building! One of the main reasons why I chose the building was that it was ready to move in and work out of immediately. But I am transitioning,  I’m going to sell the building and start working out of a home studio.

A: CAN YOU DESCRIBE THE WORK YOU ARE CURRENTLY MAKING?

Y: This is always a complicated question that I continue to struggle with because it’s ever evolving and oscillating between different interests as I’m working. I would say it is primarily concerned with the Asian American body and psyche and a very existential platform. I say that because I don’t really like the notion that it has to be centered around any singular type of individual that’s already associated with a specific identity. But I am, of course, Asian American. It’s going to come out one way or another, and it’s going to be through the lens that I know best. So, it tends to focus on that. And of course, it’s impossible to think about the body without considering our own. It’s the only truth we can fully grasp and comprehend the realities of other people through. So, I believe that would be the best way to describe it. It’s taken on different machinations, which is a good thing. It seems almost autonomous to me as though my body is just a vessel. It’s almost like even what I paint is not entirely up to me. There is in the best way I could describe a secular spiritual experience with forces that I cannot comprehend, nor do I really care to comprehend. I think I’m more interested in just examining them and having conversation as opposed to understanding. They seem to dictate, again, autonomously what I paint, how I paint. If it’s not painting, if it’s using other materials. As you mentioned, you know, in the past with my recent museum exhibition, using carpet and lighting and audio components and accompaniment to the paintings. They all kind of feel like the same thing to me, because ultimately I am trying to recreate the experiences that these artworks have provided for me. Especially the works from my heroes and mentors that I aspire to cultivate a dialogue with.

A: HOW DO YOU STRUCTURE YOUR LIFE  RIGHT NOW – WORK VS STUDIO TIME? DO YOU DO ANYTHING TO DECOMPRESS?

Y: The work always comes first. From the lessons I’ve learned for myself, if you’re going to prioritize something that is very important to you, in my case, the studio practice, my work as an artist, then It needs to be nurtured and part of that nurturing requires other activities in life such as physical fitness, in my case weightlifting has been a big proponent or hobby to essentially nurture my studio practice in a lot of ways mentally and physically. And then relaxation time, time with my family and friends and actually prioritizing that act. Those activities. They sort of mentally bring you back to earth and back to civilization. At least for me, they do more so than I was willing to admit for a number of years, especially in my twenties and early thirties. So, it’s been kind of a challenge. I’m sure most people feel that way. It continues to be a challenge, but it’s getting easier because what’s necessary becomes more and more evident with trial and error. At the same time, I think it just comes with age. You get better at your practice, you get better at life or at least managing your own life if you’re striving to do that.  And even things that have helped me work are sustaining from the overabundance of alcohol.  I don’t know why, maybe just waking up with a slight hangover more often than not affects my work or my energies.  

Ultimately though, the day-to-day is still an 8 to 12-hour day in the studio, 6 days a week. For the most part, that’s my schedule. I can’t always meet that demand, but I get pretty close. A short day would be like five or six hours. But it’s kind of necessary for me, I think mentally also to step away. It’s a space where I can recollect myself and what’s important to me. That doesn’t include just strictly painting or working on the surfaces. I would say 35, 40% of it is reading, research, and writing. That’s separate from leisure reading. Leisure reading is what I do at home before bed or if I’m just relaxing. That’s different types of texts. Usually, the texts in the studio are critical papers, what I call the PDFs, essays on very specific things in the same way that PhD candidates tend to dive very specifically into subjects and analyze those PDFs to see if there’s any information there that I can cultivate this growing studio practice.

A: HOW DO YOU COPE WHEN YOU ARE FEELING DOWN OR STUDIO ISN’T GOING WELL? THIS COULD BE LONG OR SHORT TERM?

Y: I can give you both the bad day and then the long extended rut. The bad day is, it’s sort of a mental obstacle, right? If you’re having a bad day it’s all perspective. And some of the literature that I am very fond of is stoic writings like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, whose meditations have helped me in the numerous years.  I’ve just been opening up their literature to reshape my sensibilities and perspective to accept that this comes with the territory. And that it’s not a wasted day or wasted time. It’s unavoidable. They use this analogy a lot, in a contemporary sense, if you own an automobile, you can’t expect no automobile maintenance or anything bad to happen ever. It just, that’s part of owning an automobile is facing the crises that come with that responsibility. It’s just a given. So, but again, that is a mental hurdle that you have, at least for myself, I’ve had to practice for a long time and become accustomed to accepting those realities and truths to the point where it does affect me in a positive way mentally and doesn’t deter or detract my focus in the long game. So, that’s the day to day on how I sort of cope with the bad days, which every week there’s a “bad day”, right. At least one. 

The long term if there’s like an extended period, I really turn to poetry as an art form that really caresses me and comforts me to help me identify what’s important and prioritize what I need to be focusing on beyond the anxieties that are sort of suppressing my attitudes in the studio. Notably the poets Ada Limón and Tracy K. Smith. Both of them have been monumental in my studio. This has been an awful year with work for me, so I can relate to this long-term thing. Emotionally awful, not actually anything happening but…Challenging. I’m continuously fighting against myself from being present in the room. I found there have been even long extended periods of time where I’ve been overly present and I feel it reflects in the work in ways that I notice. I’m sure the audience notices, but perhaps I’m the only one who can truly articulate that.

A: WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO DECONSTRUCT SOME OF THE MEANING OR VISUAL DECISIONS IN ONE OF YOUR PAINTINGS?

Y: Yes, the painting called, Hear Me, I Whispered – I really love this painting because I think this series and part of what I’ve been doing leading up to this show was going back to your question…. How would I describe my own work in my own words? It’s kind of complicated. The reason why I’ve had trouble answering that question is because I feel like I’ve made a dramatic shift as of the past several months. But this show was kind of part of what I would say, like the first chapter of my artistic career that I’ve since migrated from.

But this piece is exploring sort of the anxieties and the stereotypes that are culturally placed on Asian bodies. I think it does it really well, which was sort of a thesis of most of my work at this time, because you have sort of these dark skinned Asians, one appearing seemingly more yellow skinned. They’re both nude, which I think is important because I was using nudity as a vehicle to show our proximity to our own bodies, our own being the viewers. This could mean Black, Brown and White bodies, other bodies other than Asian, even other Asians. I thought that it was important to show their anatomy raw in that way instead of having them closed. It was a way to build an empathetic lens through one body viewing another. They’re sort of carrying this figure – The larger figure is carrying this seemingly smaller figure, that smaller figure is crying, which you can kind of see these pools faintly. And it looks like blood is on their face, but it’s actually pie. Because you can see that one of the symbols of the drum set that’s in disarray surrounding them is a pie, not a symbol. So, it’s this pie in the face situation, which is… What do they call it? Like an idiom or something and a description of sort of I think of like the Apollo Comedy Club when your act goes bad and you get pied in the face or like in reference to Looney Tunes. That’s sort of like old western culture imagery. Americans are the only people that I know eat pies of that nature. So, it’s also a very American delicacy as well. Which was important, because again, back to the American identity conversation. The lens in which I understand myself and the drum symbol is like sort of being scattered or the drum set because they’re making noise. And there is this typical stereotype that comes with the Asian body in America that I experienced. I don’t think that’s the case anymore, but it was in the ’90s and early 2000s, probably before that, sort of like the quiet Asian. When I was in school, I felt that my teachers sort of interacted with me in that way, as though I had nothing to say or nothing to think about compared to what I observed through the other peers who are not Asian. And that also affected me psychologically. And encouraging that sort of acquiescence to life and to social life that really hurt me tremendously. It made me think very little of myself. So, that’s why they have the small body meant to keep quiet. In some ways I see the larger figure as the previous generation of saying keep your mouth shut. Don’t stir up trouble. You read this a lot in Black American literature, especially ones that are coming out of the civil rights movement where the generations prior within slave families will often try to convince the younger generation not to cause trouble for themselves. Right? Not to stir up trouble. So, there was sort of a reflection there in this conversation to myself as well. Something that I read through that literature in the slave narrative that I could in some ways relate to more than other narratives in American literature and American history. So, that’s always something… That is a throughline for me as far as referencing African American artwork or Black American artwork in all the creative fields. It really resonates with me clearly. And so, that’s essentially a long story short of what I sort of get out of this painting. And I love the title as well because it’s like how do you hear a whisper? So, it’s kind of  this vehicle to placate the demise that these figures experience psychologically. That just comes with the artwork I’ve been attracted to – most notably is Caravaggio, who has never left me. His paintings, the way he uses dramatic lighting and the refraction of light in his compositions are so striking. The color is so rich for his time period. That sort of use of light and color becomes very important to me as a visual vehicle to communicate something that feels important.

A: ANYTHING COMING UP THAT YOU WANT TO PROMOTE? OR ANYTHING NEW IN YOUR STUDIO PRACTICE YOU’D LIKE TO TALK ABOUT?

 Y: There’s nothing really to promote. There are art fairs in Miami, Untitled, and Singapore that I’ll be participating in soon. I have a solo show with my gallery, Luce, next year. That’s really it. So I have to get started on that work right now. But I’ve had other projects going on too.  I have a book that’s coming out. That’s why I’ve been kind of busy just finalizing things for that. But that’s all the promotional stuff that I have. So, as far as the shift, I’m more interested in discussing that because it’s more interesting to me.

I think, as I mentioned with the description of Hear Me, I Whispered in that specific painting and that body of work, this first chapter of my career was informed very much by what I almost view as adolescent and necessary adolescent reaction to the world around us, which is one in which I wanted to highlight and emphasize the struggles that were being presented, the psychological struggles that I felt as an individual and to voice those things, right? For a larger audience that was important to me for numerous years. But that has since shifted to a conversation where I feel I’m more interested in creating a mythology that isn’t tethered to the stereotypes that have burdened different demographics. So, there’s an essay specifically where the title by Audrey Lorde is something along the lines of ‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the Master’s House’. So, I felt like I was sort of using the master’s tools, using this example to build a house that I don’t want to do anymore. I think that only accepts the lie that American society and history has been telling me all along. If I play into that. So it’s what Baldwin would say is to refuse the lie. So, I’m working on that initiative. What does that look like? Because it seems like that’s really the responsibility that I need to be going on. There’s some work that doesn’t include the figure. But it is still figurative because I love figurative narrative storytelling. It’s such an influence to me. And using the body, I think for me is the number one. I’m interested in painting the body because of its tradition historically in the realm of painting. Specifically the history that I’ve encountered for the most part through education and through personal interest. But I think at first these paintings I made since the switch, were maybe relatively boring on the surface. Because they’re not creating environments that are sort of like lurid and enticing like the previous works. They’re a little bit more bucolic. I’m thinking about the Greek poet Theocritus, who is considered a bucolic poet. It’s still something I’m working through, so it’s difficult for me to articulate, but at the same time, I’m very enthusiastic about it.

A: ANY BOOKS, MOVIES, MUSIC, POP CULTURE TO RECOMMEND?Y:

Y: I love the writing of William Faulkner. I love how critical we can be about him. He is an author of the American South. We have to remember the American South is the only part of America that has lost a war. And that really stirs up a lot of interesting conversation around his work in the narrative, especially if you look at it through a black American lens. Through literature and the arts. But his prose to me is just chef’s kiss. Watch the films of Andrei Tarkovsky. The Mirror and Stalker. Those are incredible works of art. It takes time. Maybe if you’re on a long flight or something. It’s a good way to just dive in fully.