Colette Fu

For Our Ancestors at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists

Colette Fu is an American photographer, book artist and paper engineer known for creating pop-up books, especially on a large scale, from her photographs. After returning to the United States, Fu studied photography at Virginia Commonwealth University and Rochester Institute of Technology, where she began collaging images into detailed hyperreal fantasy scenarios. Her large-scale, three-dimensional pop-up books feature photographic images which extend towards the viewer for many layers. During an artist residency in Shanghai, Fu designed China's largest pop-up book.

Fu's well-received pop-up book series include: Haunted Philadelphia explores the psychology of fear and spookiness in locations around the city, such as Fort Mifflin, Rodin Museum, Academy of Music and the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry. We Are Tiger Dragon People, started in 2008, is a series of pop-up books showcasing the diversity of ethnic minority communities in Yunnan Province in southwestern China. The books feature aspects of the local culture: festivals, clothing, dance, folklore, deities, and people. created at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, is the World's Largest Photo Book measuring 13.8 x 21 feet, and 5 feet high. People could enter into the pop-up book. Noodle Mountain at Grounds for Sculpture.

Fu's commercial clients for paper engineering have included LVMH, Vogue China, Canon Asia, Greenpeace and Children's Medical Center in Texas.

Fu's books are in collections including Library of Congress, Getty Research Institute, Yale University, Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Museum of Women in the Arts. Fu then learned paper engineering mechanics by reverse engineering pop-up books purchased on eBay while attending numerous artist residencies.

Each of Fu's pop-up books are a single, large format spread. A good variety of her pop-up books are based on her experiences traveling to China and learning about her culture. Fu creates a digital collage using her own photographs on her computer, then "works on the pop-up mechanisms that cause her composition to explode from the page." Fu does all the work herself, including printing and binding, and each pop-up element is cut by hand. Some books include up to 40 photographs and measure 3 x 4.5 feet.

Extended study of Chinese minorities Colette Fu's projects have taken her across the globe and can take years to fully materialize. With the help of a Fulbright fellowship, a recent endeavor found her in southwest Yunnan Province, China, where she studied the local population, learned about their culture and immersed herself in the daily life of its people. The project took ten years to complete, but resulted in some of Fu's most notable work.

Exhibitions

Awards

Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptors Grant Yaddo Fellowship, 2018 Meggendorfer Artist Book Prize, 2018 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, 2017 Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Project Stream Fund, 2017, 2009 Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Visual Arts Fellowship, 2015 Swatch Art Peace Hotel Residency, 2014 Leeway Transformation Award, 2013 Puffin Foundation Artist Grant 2021, 2015, 2010, 2003 Smack Mellon Hot Picks, 2010 Fulbright Research Fellowship to China, 2008 En Foco New Works Award, 2004 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Artist Fellowship, 2004 by Esther K. Smith, 2016. Fu's Spinning Flower Pop-Up, page 83. Playing with Pop-Ups: The Art of Dimensional, Moving Paper Designs by Helen Hiebert, 2014. Fu's pattern for a pop-up version of Philadelphia's First Bank of the United States is on pages 60–63.