Alison Kuo

Alison Kuo makes sculptures from found objects and creates performances that tell stories about the Asian diaspora experience. She is a community arts organizer in Manhattan’s Chinatown and a second-generation immigrant. Kuo’s 2026 residency with the New Museum will culminate in a new performance work that draws on her sustained research into Cantonese Opera traditions and will be presented in fall 2026. She will build sets and costumes for the performance in her singular style, drawing aesthetic inspiration and materials from the shops, restaurants, and streets of Chinatown.

Kuo has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Hessel Museum of Art, Think!Chinatown, Cuchifritos Gallery + Project Space, the Abrons Art Center, the Godwin-Ternbach Museum in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts. 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 has created site specific performance works for Paraiso Bajo in Bogotá, Columbia, and Malagana Macula in Managua, Nicaragua. She is a recipient of a Rema Hort Mann Foundation 2020 Artist Community Engagement Grant and a What Can We Do? (WCWD) grant from the Asian American Arts Alliance and has been awarded residencies at Mass MOCA and Ma’s House on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the Brooklyn Museum.

Kuo’s artistic practice extends into her work as an organizer and educator. She is a board member of the Asian American Arts Centre and a co-founder of Sisters in Self-Defense, a women’s martial arts training group formed in response to violence directed at the Asian American community during the COVID-19 pandemic. She has worked as a teaching artist at the Abrons Arts Center, The W.O.W. Project, Hamilton-Madison House Older Adult Center, Tenement Museum, P.S. 130M, and Think!Chinatown, and was previously a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts MFA Fine Arts program.

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

2026 New Museum, Artist in Residence, New York, NY. 

Ma’s House, Artist in Residence (forthcoming), Southampton NY.

2024 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

2026 Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College (CUNY), LEGENDS: Athleticism in Asian/American Art, Queens, NY.

Below Grand, Tomorrow maybe, New York, NY.

2025 Brooklyn Museum, Everyday Rebellions: Collection Conversations, Brooklyn, NY.

Miriam Gallery, Street Altars, Remembrance of the Unseen, Brooklyn, NY.

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

2022 He Xiangning Art Museum, In Working: Women In Art Practice, Shenzhen, China. 

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 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.

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.

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

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

TEACHING

2025 Facilitator, Be Like Water Fellowship for Asian diaspora lens-based artists, 

Baxter Street Camera Club of New York, New York, NY. 

2024 -2026 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

2026 Visiting Artist, Louisiana State University Department of Art, Baton Rouge, LA.

2025 Juror & Magazine/Exhibition Curator, En Foco Photography Fellowship, Bronx, NY. 

2024 “In Conversation— Rites of Passage”, International Center of Photography, New York, NY. 

“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.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lee, Summer Kim. Spoiled: Asian American Hostility and the Damage of Repair. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2025.

Ruth, Kimberly, host. “You Pick the Moon with Alison Kuo.” Art Uncovered Podcast. 2024, April 9. https://www.artuncoveredpodcast.com/alison-kuo.

Matei, Adrienne.  “The latest internet trend I can’t get enough of: gelatin.” The Guardian, 2019, Oct 17. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/oct/17/jelly-jell-o-gelatin-internet-trend.

Orlow, Emma. “Jell-O, Out of the Mold.”  The New York Times, 2019, Sept 25. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/30/t-magazine/francesco-balzano-furniture-jello-art-culture-news.html?module=inline.

Healy, Claire Marie and Emma Orlow, “A Seat at the Table.” Dazed Magazine, 2018, Jan 5. https://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/38490/1/food-art-new-york.