Feature by Vivian Wang
Photos by Colson Struss
Viela Hu CC’27 is from Vancouver, Canada, studying art history and visual arts at Columbia. Her multimedia creative works have expanded far beyond her traditional training for technical works, investigating concepts of the female body, nature, cosmic connection, and more. Rather than conveying a definitive message, her art documents a continuous exploration of her evolving understanding of herself and the world around her.
As I made my way to the sundial to meet Viela, I tried to remember all the questions I had prepared, wondering how (and if it was even possible) to encapsulate her vast portfolio in one article. Both of us were bundled up against the sudden chill that's picked up in this year's unpredictable weather, and having just come out of class, we unanimously decided to grab something to eat first. After finding an empty table in Lerner to settle down with our sushi, we tried to get to know each other in a casual conversation, giving us time to finish our meal before the formal interview began, but even in casual conversation, we couldn’t help but circle back to her art.
Creating has always been an intrinsic part of who Viela is– an instinctive way of expressing herself that comes more naturally than words. There is no clear “beginning” to her creative process; it’s simply something that exists alongside her, as constant and natural as breathing.
“Art is so central to me. It's a comfort place because there's an intimacy that you have with your work. I always say I feel like it’s alive. You interact with it.”
Viela describes her work as a “curated chaos.” Her artistic process, she explained, usually sparks from a very banal moment in her day-to-day life. From there, the creation unfolds through a highly mechanical process, one that she compares to a scientific experiment. She often pulls from a variety of foreign materials to express the specific concepts she explores, resulting in a lot of trial and error in her work. Despite the presence of recurring elements, from Barbie dolls to peonies, that seem to connect her work, Viela doesn’t seek to convey a singular, overarching theme. Her portfolio, she says, is more like an exploration of the random, the serious and the absurd, with no grand intention behind it.
“It goes back to a conversation with my French professor. Our conversation was centering on ‘is there even a message that the author’s trying to convey?’ And I really agree with this point. There really isn’t anything behind my art that I’m trying to convey where I haven’t figured out already. My work isn’t even a final product, as opposed to an accumulation of my exploration. If I knew what I wanted to convey, I would have told everybody in a very simplified way.”
Much of Viela’s artwork is an exploration of the body and meditates on how it shapes one’s sense of self and their relationship with the world. In Garden of Life, Viela confronts the interplay between life and pain that stems from the uterus. “There’s no religious reference,” she clarified. “I only realized after I named it that the garden could be interpreted as religious. I meant it as the uterus is the garden of life.” This three-dimensional collage embodies a maximalist aesthetic that she tends towards in her artworks, emphasizing depth, texture, and a rich palette of colors. As I gazed at the collage, I felt as if I was looking through an I-Spy book, trying to identify all the elements that strung together to form this symbolic orchid.
Flower Womb serves as a striking visual and tactile manifestation of the journey through the psychological and physical shifts of puberty, using peonies as a metaphor for the uterus. For this project, sourcing materials became a crucial part of her process, as she experimented with a variety of silicon samples to simulate the look and texture of skin. Functioning as headpieces, Flower Womb invites the spectator to become a part of the work. “I wanted it to be that your head is inside the uterus, so you’re seeing and feeling the psychological changes as well as physical changes,” she said. Each of the three headpieces explores a different stage of transformation. The first, with a blue peony peeking out from the corner, symbolizes the subtle unfolding of physical change. The second, featuring pom poms and draped yarn, conveys a surge of energy, while the third, in bold fuchsia, reflects an awakening.
Viela is also fascinated with the relationship between herself, the people around her, and the entire universe, a concept sparked from an astronomy class that she took at Columbia, “Stars and Atoms.” She explained to me that the universe began with hydrogen as the basic element, and the remainder of the periodic table was built from the bursting of stars, which ultimately comes together to form us. “There’s this connection between all things and everything,” she notes thoughtfully, resting her hand on her chin. Me, Others, and the Universe, is a 1 minute video artwork that took two years to make. The video opens with her eye staring directly into the viewer. Her eye becomes a metonym for herself and her deeper inquiry into the feeling of insignificance amidst larger natural forces and the expansive world around her. As her breath becomes the dominant sound, it drowns out the hum of static chatter, placing the viewer in a position of vulnerability and overwhelming presence. Throughout the video, different clips of the bustling city and natural disasters come together, and the rhythm of her breathing subtly shifts, becoming erratic at times, almost as if it's struggling to keep pace with the enormity of the universe. By the end, we’re left with the sound of her breathing and the subsiding of a wave, leaving the viewer with a lingering sense of intimacy.
“Exploration is so central to me. Through the eye, you see the world, and through the eye you’re interpreting the world in a visual sense. I take more of a passive position in my explorations, like I'm looking and I'm interpreting. Unlike the mouth, I’m not projecting things into the audience. With the eye, I’m just looking and interpreting, so it’s a more reflective process.”
From Stars is a continuation of this idea of cosmic connection through a laborious collage of oil paintings. Viela focuses on circular forms, both industrial and natural, while revisiting motifs of her own body, including her eye and mouth, positioning these symbols along the Milky Way. Returning to her multimedia roots by using yarn, she constructs a tangible linear line that ties these earthly elements to the cosmos.
Other pieces take on more playful tones. Split into two series, Me, Life In The Wild, is a satirical commentary inspired by a jarring camping experience. “I have an affinity towards nature, in a quarantined sense. I don't hate camping. I just think that there's something funny about the idea of going outside and camping, but then having to isolate yourself in a tent that's plastic,” she said. While lying on her plastic air mattress, trying to ignore the itch from her constellation of bug bites, Viela began to reflect on our increasingly industrial lives. She saw Barbie as a token of the industrial robot, as well as herself. In series one, she positions the doll in various awkward poses, where the very idea of connecting with the natural world is at odds with its synthetic, plastic form, drawing a dystopian parallel with the artificial boundaries we’ve created between ourselves and the environment. Series two takes a metafictional approach; the dolls seem to be trapped in a continuous loop of self-examination, which I found mirrors Viela’s own process of self-discovery and questioning.
With her art history and visual arts degree, Viela is thinking about going into education, given the impact her various professors have had on her life and her artwork. Viela’s website (vielahu.com) houses more of her portfolio and delves deeper into her rigorous artistic process, alongside glimpses into her life beyond the studio– whether it's baking or skiing. My favorite section, the sketchbook page, shows fragments of her raw, unfiltered creative thoughts and early concepts. You can also connect with her through her instagram @hu.fineart.