Growing up the daughter of a doctor and working for many years for the family business, Alison Kuo learned that the intimate workings of the human body, the organs that keep us functioning, carry a certain mystique. When they are working properly they are wholly ours to do with as we please. When a glitch in the system arises they can become the business of others, experts, and we are alienated from them in the process. Her sculptures are inspired by a desire to reclaim that ownership and have a little fun with it. They are soft, fleece organs that can be touched, rearranged, and manipulated to interact with each other, and the people who play with them, in improbable ways. Her installation at Box 13 will display a tableaux of the exuberant outgrowth of these toy body parts, the creation of which began with the innocent notion that sewing would be a relaxing hobby.
Alison Kuo received her BA from Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX where she studied Ceramics and never quite completed her minor in Biology. In 2007 she traveled to China with the University of West Virginia to ride on trains, learn about ceramics production from the master craftsmen and artists of Jingdezhen, eat well, and discover her own family's secret history of involvement in the arts. She now lives in Austin, and spends most of her time working at Domy Books and hand-stitching sculpture. She recently collaborated on an installation called Cat's Cradle with Lauren Cardenas and Carling Hale for the Colab new media space in Austin.