When it comes to creating art, Los Angeles-based artist iris yirei hu seems to have mastered every medium. During her artist talk on Oct. 30 in UC San Diego\u2019s Franklin Antonio Hall, hu spoke about her creations during her Master of Fine Arts at Columbia University and the work she has done as a full-time artist. As a creative myself, I attended her talk to learn from her artistic process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
hu delved into her MFA thesis at Columbia, a three-room interactive piece called \u201cSurvival Guide,\u201d which she worked on from 2016 to 2019 after the sudden loss of her best friend, Emi Kuriyama. Centering on themes of legacy and memory, the work is inspired by both Kuriyama\u2019s influence in hu\u2019s life and the legacy practice of Navajo art.\u00a0<\/p>\n
hu learned to weave on the traditional Navajo loom from Navajo artist Melissa Cody, creating colorful tapestries that hung in her display rooms. For this piece, she chose bright colors to emulate California\u2019s desert sunsets in a tribute to her and Kuriyama\u2019s home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
hu\u2019s combination of personal influences and timeless techniques explores the power of human interaction, emphasizing that the unity of multiple styles and the pooling of unlikely inspirations are what give rise to uniqueness. She uses whatever technique fits the story she wants to tell, like ceramics and weaving, and is eager to imbibe new art forms and traditions. Rather than engaging with politicized criticism, she focuses solely on the art that she wants to create using a multicultural approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c[My approach was] something that I constantly had to defend \u2026 because there was just such a fear of, \u2018Okay, you\u2019re Asian,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201c\u2018You should make art about being Asian, or why are you working with an Indigenous elder?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
hu is devoted to her craft, traveling to Indigenous villages in China and Mexico to explore fabric dyeing. She brings these and other skills to making artwork that honors her home \u2014 the rich environment of Southern California. The city of Los Angeles recently commissioned her to create a mural for the LA Metro Westwood\/UCLA D Line Station that will be unveiled in 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my love letter to the city,\u201d hu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By incorporating native animals and 19 different California plant species into her artwork, she aims to contribute to an environmentally conscious, diverse LA. As someone who is also from California, it was beautiful to see so many plants and animals I grew up with represented in hu\u2019s artwork.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As part of her Longenecker-Roth artist residency at UCSD, hu\u2019s current project, \u201cunnamed,\u201d is a 56-foot-long indigo wool textile work in collaboration with mixed-media artist Paula Wilson. She explained how the elaborate indigo dyeing process is also a larger metaphor for appreciating every step that goes into creating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As hu wrapped up, a student asked, \u201cHow do you know you\u2019ve made it?\u201d hu responded, \u201cYou kind of never know. \u2026 Making art is a habit; you cannot wait for inspiration. You do it every day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This insight really stuck with me. It felt as though she was talking about any goal we had, art-related or not, telling us that we don\u2019t need to be good at something right away; we just need to be dedicated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
hu\u2019s discussion is an important reminder of how drawing from personal experience can create beautiful pieces, but seeking out new ways of expression can be just as enlightening. She inspires future creatives like myself to incorporate both principles into our art, just as she does. hu exemplifies how pushing boundaries and committing to our craft allows us to explore our passions in original ways \u2014 a piece of advice she encouraged her audience to live by.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re feeling inspired to explore iris yirei hu\u2019s art further, check out her open studio this Friday, Nov. 21, from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. at UCSD\u2019s Visual Arts Facility Main Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to creating art, Los Angeles-based artist iris yirei hu seems to have mastered every medium.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[35261,35262,131,133,132,35263,18740],"class_list":["post-57331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-artist-in-residence","tag-iris-yirei-hu","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-longenecker-roth","tag-visual-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}