BIO
Born in 2006 in Houston, Texas, Nhu Chu is a contemporary artist based in Houston and a current sophomore at Rice University. Her artistic practice investigates her interest in urban planning, architecture, and the human body’s relationship to nature—particularly how boundaries, both visible and invisible, shape the human experience.
Chu’s work is strongly characterized by line, contour, and border. She interprets the line as a concrete yet fleeting gesture: a threshold of space that invites suggestion and ambiguity. As lines exponentially procreate, they intersect one another at specific points: trees, riverbanks, city grids. This convergence of the natural and the urban acts as the ultimate dichotomy of structure and fluidity.
Her oeuvre is best known for ink drawings and watercolors that accentuate the tension between man-made and natural boundaries. In Wonderment, a linocut composed from a constructed collage, Chu reflects on how lines are capable of carving the quotidian day, framing negative space, and escorting the viewer’s eye toward what is defined within the scene. Through delicately selected marks, Chu deliberately examines how borders can protect and divide, delineating the uninhabitable and the speculative subversion of its original intent.
Chu’s methodology begins with liberal, curvaceous drafts, often guided by loose photographs and personal anecdotes. This process allows her to fossilize the fleeting gesture and essence of her subjects. From this, a sense of fluidity persists through the fragile passage of time. She uses art as a dialogue—a conversation between the complexity of contemporary life and the viewer’s own insight—encouraging the viewer to reconsider how boundaries shape our societies and ourselves.
CV
Born in 2006 in Houston, Texas
Resides and works in Houston, Texas
Solo Exhibitions:
2024 The Lies We Tell, Clare Attwood Glassell Gallery, Houston, USA
Selected Exhibitions:
2023 High Art, O’Kane Gallery, Houston, USA
2023 Harvard Arts First, Signet Society, Cambridge, USA
2023 Scholastic Art Show, Ronald W. Reagan, Houston, USA
2023 ISAS, All Saint’s Episcopal School, Fort Worth, USA
2023 Art Junction, A 2nd Cup, Houston, USA
2022 Scholastic Winners Show, Spring Street Studios, Houston, USA
Awards & Recognition:
2025 Humanities Art Competition, Rice University, Houston, USA
2024 High Art Honorable Mention, High Art Show, Houston, USA
2023 8th Landscape Finalist, Teravarna, Los Angeles, USA
2023 7th Portrait International Honorable Mention, Teravarna, Los Angeles, USA
2023 Visual Art Award winner, St. John’s School, Houston, USA
Publications:
2025 Rice University, “The Times” in R2: The Rice Review.
2024 “Issue Fifty-One” in The Adroit Journal.
2024 “Hush” and “The Times” in Elementia.
2024 Tom Worthen, “Fall 2023 Celebrating Art” in Celebrating Art.
2023 Ariana Lee, “An International, Multimedia Anthology: Unique and United.” in International Human Rights Art Movement.
2023 Ariana Lee, Molly Hennessy, “Unlock Your Imagination” in Imagination.
2023 “Huffington” in Teen Ink.
2023 Tom Worthen, “Spring 2023 Celebrating Art” in Celebrating Art.
2023 Thom Bierd, “American Art Awards Early Submissions: Pastel Tiger, Oil Surrealism, Oil Impressionism, Watercolor Streetscapes, More” in American Art Awards.