The Act of Iteration
/The Act of Iteration
On view in Gillespie Gallery until March 13, 2026
By Steven Luu
In The Act of Iteration, artist Steven Luu examines artmaking as a material, perceptual, and meditative practice. Working primarily with recycled paper, Luu engages in repeated acts of gathering, tearing, pressing, molding, and reconstituting. These actions form a sustained, ritual-like process in which care, repetition, and attention are central. Through sustained physical engagement with simple cast-off materials and an iterative process, Luu opens a space for personal self-reflection. Labor allows the sub-conscious to surface gradually over time, revealing latent layers of personal memory, past trauma, and the accumulated effects of being in the world. The resulting objects of this labor remain quiet, restrained, and evocative of the process of reclamation and reconstruction from which they emerge.
The exhibit provokes the viewer to engage with the questions that Luu has been working through. How does one unify the inner experience of the refugee, the survivor, and the artist? What does it take to repair the effects of the past and work with the raw ingredients of the self? How can an image or object of beauty emerge from the material that we might normally suppress?
This practice is grounded in four guiding elements: Material, Process, Play, and Safety. Concurrently, they form a framework that supports sustained inquiry, allowing the artist to work with vulnerability while maintaining balance and structure. Iteration functions not as repetition for its own, but as a deliberate method for reflection, renewal, and growth.
Install Shots
About Steven Luu
My artwork is a vessel for my healing. During my childhood, unlike many other kids with beautiful and happy memories, I endured hardship, poverty under Communism, and the unforgiving sea during our escape from Vietnam. I was less than eight years old when I had to help push corpses of starved people off the boat to prevent contamination. And the theme of death continued traveling with me beyond my childhood. As a U.S. military medic, I provided lifesaving to fallen comrades and enemies in dangerous situations. All these tragic encounters made me struggle to understand why I am constantly surrounded by the theme of death. The materials I used for my artworks include everyday objects that accompanied me while serving in the military and include industrial materials like concrete, and epoxy resin. Both resin and concrete start as either liquid or dry composite material that must be mixed to activate and transform into a rigid substance that forms an object. My artwork is aligned with geometric shapes that are fundamental to me because they give me a sense of order. The organized shapes allow me to resolve the stress and chaos of my trauma. The process of making art becomes the ritual of healing for me.