Alison Kuo

Alison Kuo is a second generation immigrant who pursues intersectional relationships across communities through artistic engagement. She is the co-founder of the group Sisters in Self-Defense based in Manhattan’s Chinatown along with the writer Ava Chin. She has worked as a teaching artist at the Abrons Art Center, the W.O.W. Project, the Hamilton-Madison House Senior Center, and Think!Chinatown and has served as faculty in the SVA MFA Fine Arts Program.

Kuo has shown her work at Think!Chinatown, the Hessel Museum of Art, Cuchifritos, the Abrons Art Center, Beverly’s, CANADA, Happy Family Night Market, Grace Exhibition Space, Marvin Gardens, and the Yeh Art Gallery in New York, at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in Massachusets, and at the UNTITLED Art Fair, and the Young at Art Museum in Miami. Internationally, her work has been shown in the 4th Overseas Chinese Artists Invitational Exhibition at the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, Singapore Arts Week 2022, the 2016 Nanjing International Art Festival, and the MATERIAL art fair in Mexico City. She made site specific performance works for Paraiso Bajo in Bogotá, and Malagana Macula in Managua. She is a recipient of a Rema Hort Mann Foundation 2020 Artist Community Engagement Grant.

Contact: kuoskies[at]gmail[dot]com.

EDUCATION

Masters of Fine Art, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY, May 2014.

Bachelor of Art, Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, May 2008,

Magna cum laude, Major: Studio Art, Minor: Art History.

COLLECTIONS

Brooklyn Museum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art.

GRANTS & RESIDENCIES

2024 Finalist for Adobe Creative Residency at MoMA, New York, NY. 

Think!Chinatown, Lantern Artist Residency, New York, NY.

2019 Rema Hort Mann Community Artist Community Engagement Grant (in collaboration with the W.O.W. Project), New York, NY.

Studios at MASS MoCA Faculty Residency, North Adams, MA.

SOLO EXHIBITION & PROJECTS

2024 Field Projects, You Pick the Moon, New York, NY.

2022 Think!Chinatown, We’ll Meet Again, New York, NY.

2019. Abrons Art Center, The New Joys of Gellies, New York, NY. 

Happy Family Night Market, Good Luck Community Product, New York, NY.

2018    Happy Family Night Market, Chinese Cooking the American Way, Brooklyn, NY.

2016    Motel, New Jin Guang II, Brooklyn, NY.

2013    Superchief Gallery, Juicy, Juicy Special Request Deluxe, New York, NY.

              Eleven Seventeen Garland, Colorful Food, Austin, TX.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2024 Brooklyn Museum, The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition, Brooklyn, NY. 

Dorsey’s Fine Art Gallery, Communion of Treasures, Brooklyn, NY. 

2023 Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Digital Iridescence: Jell-O in New Media, Boston, MA

Five Myles Gallery, Gathering, Brooklyn, NY

VSOP Projects, Finders Keepers, Greenport, NY

2021 Nars Foundation, Bubble Orchestra Exhibition, New York, NY.

Walter Elwood Contemporary, PAD Retrospective, Amsterdam, NY.

24EBroadway, Steeped in Spilt Milk, New York, NY. 

NADA House/PAD Gallery, Pique-nique Basquette, Governors Island, NY.

2020 Hessel Art Museum, Somatic’s Grocery, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY.

Standard Space, SNACKS, Sharon, CT. 

Stoneleaf Retreat, Upstate Art Weekend, Kingston, NY.

SVA Chelsea Gallery, Believing You, New York, NY. 

2019 BombPop!Up, Body Horror, Brooklyn, NY.

Beverly’s, Ride a Cow to Find a Horse, New York, NY.

Marvin Gardens, Flesh and Fantasy, Ridgewood, NY. 

Grace Exhibition Space, Standing Arrangements, New York, NY. 

2018 Cuchifritos, Extremely absorbent and increasingly hollow, New York, NY.

Woskob Family Gallery, Hold(ing) Tight, State College, PA.

PAD Gallery, Comi Duh!, New York, NY.

National Academy of Design, BombPop!Up presents HOW TO, New York, NY

Malagana Macula, Manta de Sudor, Managua, Nicaragua. 

2017 Timeshare, Fun House, New York, NY. 

Young at Art Museum, Summer of Love, Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Lehman College Art Gallery, Alien Nations, Bronx, NY.

Abrons Arts Center, Abrons Faculty Exhibition 2017, New York, NY.

2016 Random Institute, All the Lights We Cannot See, Pyongyang, North Korea.

Paraiso Bajo, Sala de Espera, Bogotá, Colombia. 

Nanjing International Art Festival, Historicode, Nanjing, China.

5 Anderson Street, Game Night, New Rochelle, NY.

E.Tay Gallery, VERBLIST, New York, NY.

Space Heater, Opening, Brooklyn, NY.

2015 Beverly’s, Yes & Know, New York, NY.

Sideshow Gallery, Plus One, Brooklyn, NY.

695 Grand St, NEW WORK, NEW YORK, Brooklyn, NY. 

NARS Foundation, The Dreams I Gave Her, Brooklyn, NY.

2014 Transformer, Promised Land, Asbury Park, NJ.

SVA Chelsea Gallery, Front and Center, New York, NY.

2013 UNTITLED Fair, Beverly’s VIP Lounge, Miami, FL.

Present Company, Antithesis, Brooklyn, NY.

Limited Time Only and Independent Curators International, MAD-LIB[rary] Vol. 3, New York, NY.

2011 CANADA, Dadarhea, New York, NY.

2010 OHWOW, Dadarhea, Miami, FL.

TEACHING

2024 Teaching Artist, CASA After School Art Program, 92Y School Engagements and PS 130M partnership, New York, NY. 

2023 Guest Critic, Pratt Institute MFA Painting, Brooklyn, NY. 

2022 Community Day featured Teaching Artist, New Museum, New York, NY.

2020 Teaching Artist, W.O.W. Project, New York, NY.

2019 Open Mic (Archive as Score) with Umber Majeed, New School, New York, NY.

2017 - 2020 Faculty, MFA Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts, New York, NY.

2016 - 2020 Teaching Artist Faculty, Abrons Art Center, New York, NY.

2013 Teaching Artist, SPARC Residency with LMCC at the City Hall Senior Center, New York, NY. 

LECTURES, PANELS & JURIES

2024 “You Pick the Moon with Alison Kuo”, Art Uncovered Podcast, New York, NY.

2023-2024 Guest Lecturer, SAIC Professional Development, Chicago, IL. 

2022 “POWarts Trailblazer Series: Alison Kuo,” Dialog with Stephanie Cunningham, Stephanye Watts and Stephanie Acosta, Professional Organization for Women in the Arts.

Juror, Saastamoinen Foundation for 2024 ISCP Residency, Helsinki. 

2021 “Cultivating Connections: Building Creative Community From a Distance,” Association of Independent Colleges of Art & Design Virtual Symposium.

“Your meeting attendees are waiting! – artistic residencies in lockdown and after,” Forum for Dialogue at the 19th SURVIVAL Art Review, ART TRANSPARENT, Wrocław, Poland.

Juror, Abrons AIRspace Residency, New York, NY.

Visiting Artist, NYC Crit Club, course taught by Carlos Rosales Silva, New York, NY. 

Guest Lecturer, VCU Sculpture, course taught by Hsini Des, Richmond, VA.

Live Virtual Studio Visit, Artfare, online.

Juror, Thayer Fellowship and Patricia Kerr Ross Award​, SUNY.

2019 “Teaching professional development through visiting artist programs and exhibitions,” the Studios at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA.

2018 Artist Talk, SVA Masters in Fine Arts Public Lecture Series, New York, NY.