About:
Vivi Niya Gao (b. 2002 Yili, China) is an interdisciplinary artist and the founder of Us Gallery Contemporary. She works specifically in sculpture and installation. Niya attends the School of Art Institute Chicago, United States, majoring in sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in group shows at Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, the John B Aird Gallery in Toronto, Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, Art Etobicoke in Toronto, University of Toronto–Trinity Review, Zhou Brothers Art Center in Chicago, Co-Prosperity in Chicago, CICA Museum in Korea, and Unwashed , Kunstverein Bayreuth in Germany.
In my work, I transform architectural elements into playful performable sculptures and installations, awaiting activation. I've called several places home, and this nomadic lifestyle inspires me to create work that travels with me, leaving marks both internally and externally.
When you enter my home, where a revolving door reshapes the space between us. A living wall of grass and a floor of fluffy creatures. Looking closely, a translucent wall on wheels blurs the line between inside and out. While shutters play a game of peek-a-boo. Everything moves, everything travels—ready to roll.Rooted in a migratory and global experience living in Asia and North America, I want to create a playful experience in the space that shapes possibility through freedom, self-determination, adaptability, mobility, permanence, and the balance between construction and destruction within structures and systems.
My work also involves human bodies. In my series “Architecture and Body”, the performers are asked to create improvise movement with the performable sculpture and installation to create feedback and respond through the environment. As a way to explore the human body and environmental spaces, allowing them to continue the conversation from their position. The most current ongoing work is Nomad, a collection of playful small portable sculptures that can travel with me after my final year as a senior.