Joseph Hu: Recent Works
September 6 - 28, 2002

press release:

Peng Gallery is pleased to present Joseph Hu in his debut solo exhibition. Joseph Hu: Recent Works, opens Friday, September 6th, and continues through Saturday, September 28th. A public reception for the artist will be held on September 6th, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Joseph Hu’s work addresses the complexities and uncertainties of growing up as a first generation Chinese-American. Through painting, photography, installation and video, he has explored issues of disconnection, ritual, memory and longing.

In this recent series of paintings, Hu uses landscape as a means of examining place. The landscapes are drawn from photographs of his parents, taken some 35 years ago when they were the same age as the artist. By removing his parents from the image, Hu allows the landscapes to become our backgrounds, providing an opportunity to create new memories.

Painted in black and white or with muted colors, the blurred paintings are seemingly quiet, even subdued. Hu selects moments in the landscape that allow for transformation; the specificity of the settings become second to their new significance.

Joseph Hu received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1998 and his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2001. He has exhibited at the Open Studios Press Gallery (Boston); The International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago); Arcadia University Art Gallery (Glenside, PA); Perkins Center for the Arts (Moorestown, NJ); Esther M. Klein Art Gallery, University City Arts League and Vox Populi (all in Philadelphia). His work is included in public and private collections in the United States including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Hu received an Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Visual Arts in 2002. He is a member of Vox Populi and currently resides in Philadelphia.