Neon Fab Studios Sean Billy Kizy

Artist Barbara Cooper joins us in a conversation that's close to our professional hearts. Are designers also artists? Is art and design one in the same, and if not, what gives them their distinction? As an architect cum artist and fabrication specialist, it hits deep notes around self-image and identity that we see in each profession.

Barbara is a Chicago based artist, environmentalist and activist with a storied history of completing public artworks along with an ever evolving personal studio practice.

Barbara describes here own practice; 'Nature is always my place to begin.  I am drawn to how forms respond to the stresses they withstand and the obstacles they confront.  Starting with observations of specific phenomena, I abstract the parallels I find in processes as diverse as the surge of lava, the creep of a glacier, the flow of water, or the growth of a tree.

My focus is on how a form records its growth process of evolving from one condition to another as it responds to its environment.  This process of transformation, whether in the natural environment or in the realm of the cultural or the personal, is an essential aspect of life.  It is the foundation upon which my work builds.'

Thank you for listening!

Links to Barbara's Studio and Neon Fab Studios:

https://www.barbaracooperartist.com/

https://neonfabstudios.webflow.io/

Join us as we sit down with Gwen Yen Chiu, a Chicago-based, Asian-American artist whose work explores and critiques the ephemeral nature of human history, social practices, and emotion through abstracted imagery. Her process features fabricated and cast metal at its core. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design for fashion design and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago for Sculpture, receiving her BFA from SAIC in 2018. Since graduation, she has shown her work both nationally and internationally. Gwen also works as a metal fabricator, assisting artists around Chicago in all aspects of creating and producing large-scale sculptural works.

You can find out more about Gwen on her website here.

Thank you for listening!

Neon Fab Studios

We're joined with Amrita Raja to discuss her take on where the practice of architecture is going, how that feeds into large scale art making and a decadent meal on the streets of Paris. Amrita teaches undergrad architecture at Birmingham City University, freelance writes for architectural publications, founded independent research on Counter-Canons in architecture and is the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Chair for the AIA International Region. In addition, she designs both art and architecture projects of her own. Thank you so much for joining us.