CHIAOZZA (pronounced CHOW-zah) is a design project of the collaborative artist team Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao. Begun as a grounds for experimentation bridging art and design, the project has grown into a full-fledged design studio that now makes up half of the practice of Frezza and Chiao. Founded on the principles of play in the everyday, the geometric forms created by CHIAOZZA draw from the language of utility present in functional objects such as furniture, vessels, and tools, forming their own visual lexicon akin to landscape iconography, primitive symbols, or the pictographs of a parallel language.

In this exhibition, CHIAOZZA will exhibit large-scale wooden sculptures that bring this visual language to the scale of the human body. Hand-cut with Japanese saws, the colorful hanging forms are assembled with simple lap joints, resembling both furniture and painting, yet arguably functioning as neither. The open-ended experiential implications of functional sculpture or functionless furniture is a primary investigation in these studies, engaging a viewer’s expectations and curiosities about how these objects are to be used or understood. Originally inspired by a Danish folk object similar to a curiosity cabinet, the evolution of this transcultural icon embraces and builds upon the knowledge and aesthetic practice from otherwise lost or distant traditions.

Adam Frezza & Terri Chiao are a collaborative artist duo based in Brooklyn, NY. The pair have been working together since 2011. With backgrounds in fine art (Frezza) and architecture (Chiao), they work across multiple disciplines, exploring the intersections of the natural and imagined worlds through the lens of Play.

The duo has completed residencies at The School of Making Thinking in The Catskills, NY; Starry Night Retreat in Truth or Consequences, NM; Kökarkultur in Åland, Finland; and fellowships at BRIC Media Arts and Pratt Instititue in Brooklyn, NY. In 2014, their practice was named among Smack Mellon’s Hot Picks and Sight Unseen’s American Design Hot List. Frezza and Chiao have had a solo show at Wave Hill in The Bronx, NY, and a two-artist show at Wayfarers in Brooklyn, NY, among others. Their exhibition at Vox Populi will be their second solo show together.

www.eternitystew.com
www.chiaozza.com