Evan Kuo - Artist

CV Resume Web.pdf

I am obsessed with gardening and the squash plant and as I have aged I like to celebrate the American holidays with decorations and displays even though I live alone and don’t have children. This blends my interest in gardening, squash and American holiday traditions. For me the mysticism of the Squash plant and its beautiful heart shaped leaves and fragility and the way it produces edible berries that one can harvest without killing the plant provides a sense of security to me by protecting life and its fragility. The squash is also a “true annual” that can not really live more than 1 season even in climates with no cold winters so it supports my security by not planting tender tropical perennials and then letting a plant that could survive for many seasons die in the frost. I am also obsessed with insects. Saving insects from being squashed when walking on the street gives me a sense of security. These insects live in the grasslands that our artificial cities and roadways have replaced. If you look close insects are an amazing world of microorganism that are surprisingly complex. My pet grasshopper was as cute and as smart and as interactive as my old cat.

I work with clay because when used on the pottery wheel one can take a messy glob of goo and craft it into a perfect form found in industry, lifestyle. My interest in functional forms is about making perfect forms that are usable and decorating artistically. I tend to see myself as a modernist because I like my work to have a light positive message and not postmodernisms scary confrontationally and controversy.