Dallas artist Du Chau's work is currently on display at The University Gallery on the campus of Texas A&M University-Commerce. In the audio player above, you can hear KETR's feature story on Chau. Below, you can find the university's release describing the exhibition, as well as some additional audio clips from Chau's conversation with KETR.
The Exhibition
The University Gallery at Texas A&M University-Commerce is pleased to announce Du Chau | The Silence that Speaks | 1998-2023.
The exhibition is on view from January 9 through February 22, 2024, at The University Gallery located at 2005 University Drive in Commerce, Texas. An artist lecture and reception will be held on Wednesday, January 31, as follows:
- Artist Lecture: 4 p.m., Art Building, Room 111
- Reception: 5 to 7 p.m., The University Gallery
The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment.
The exhibition features artwork from the last 25 years of Du Chau's career, including well-known porcelain and wire pieces, archival pigment prints, silkscreen prints, bronze, and other mixed media. Chau's themes evoke gripping yet tender memories of childhood, family, and personal growth in the aftermath of war, presented as visually stunning experiences. Each piece invites the viewer to slow down, contemplate and reflect.
According to Amy Lewis Hofland, senior director at Crow Museum of Asian Art in Dallas:
Du Chau’s work invites us to be inside of the bountiful: a life that knows its own preciousness, its abundance, and the imminent practicality of death. Natural forms are the familiar nearby: that which is within us and around us invites our wonder and our awe at the indescribable mystery of it all. His work, to witness it, is the experience: he calls us into the field. His stories become our stories through intense color, delicate forms, and the tenacious practice of breathtaking multiplicity.
About the Artist
Du Chau was born in Vietnam and came to the United States in 1981. He pursued a medical career and is currently a pathology technical coordinator at Methodist Hospital of Dallas. After taking art classes at Dallas College Brookhaven Campus, he took a sabbatical from his medical career to pursue BFA and MFA degrees at New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. In addition to his medical practice, Du Chau is also an adjunct instructor of ceramics at Dallas College.
Chau has exhibited his work at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, Amarillo Museum of Arts, and Wichita Falls Museum of Art. Chau's artwork is included in collections at the University of Texas in Austin, Dallas College, the Curaumilla Art Center in Chile, CRETA Rome in Italy, Honos Contemporary Art Gallery in Italy, the Alfred Art Ceramic Museum in New York, and the Museum Complex at the University of Port Harcourt Nigeria.
Chau was a visiting scholar at the University of Port Harcourt and Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria in 2019. He is the recipient of the 2017 NCECA International Residency Award, which allowed him to work at the Curaumilla Arts Center in Chile. In 2016, he was awarded a residency from the CRETA Foundation in Rome, Italy.
Additional audio clips
