A cultural rift formed between Chiu and her family through her international journey. In an attempt to bridge this rift, she explores alternative ways to stay connected and remember them through the abstraction of memory into geometric shapes.
Chiu describes her memories of her family as “fragile” and “not constant”. She is making them distant in geography, time, and mentality. In Chiu’s collection “Under the Same Sky, Oceans Apart” she paints triangles to represent herself as not being part of a family of four. Overseeing them from afar, fantasizing the perfection of each one of them.
On the canvases, in her own space, Chiu tells a story of an invitation that does not entail a response; a pictorial letter written solely as an emotional outlet out of the fear of gestating unwanted hopes and expectations.
Despite having convoluted feelings towards the past and the lack of substantial connections to her family, she continues to archive her memories artistically. Visually embalming and recreating these fragments that define her family with decisive strokes and lurid colors under the sky, hence the omnipresent blue background in the collection.
“I hope one day my paintings will invite them back into my life.”