Fay Ku is a Taiwan-born, New York City-based artist whose work is figurative, narrative, and connects with cultural histories. She is the recipient of a 2007 Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant and 2009 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grant, and was a 2023 finalist for the same NYFA fellowship. She’s exhibited both nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at the Honolulu Museum of Art, Marlboro College, New Britain Museum of American Art, the Snite Museum of Art, and her work was included in the Brooklyn Museum’s 2024 “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition.” Ku has held residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Textile Arts Center, Tamarind Institute, EFA/Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, Wave Hill Winter Workspace, The Fountainhead Residency, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, and Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. The Tamarind Institute released new editioned prints created by Ku at the upcoming 2026 IFPDA Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory in New York in 2026.
Ku arrived at MacDowell with the intention to not focus on production, but instead replicate the isolation and quiet out of which her first works on paper were forged twenty years ago. Despite (or because of) this deep dive into contemplation, Ku created a series of twelve 30x20 inch drawings. In each drawing, a single female figure kneels in peaceful repose, and each work acts as a field of play for a variety of material exploration including processes and materials not traditionally associated with drawing, such as chine collé, embroidery, and weaving.
