Not a fine artist, just a fine artist by Judy Kuo responds humorously to the social and commercial expectations placed on artists. To access funding, status and institutional recognition, artists are expected to curate a polished aesthetic and sell to patrons a conceit of profound meaning in their practice. Their art must be supremely philosophical without being political, commercially sustainable but still worthy of grant funding. This project embodies the artist’s failure to live up to these expectations, not as a tragedy, but as an inside joke shared among all struggling artists.

Made up of more than 100 marker drawings, the artist deliberately creates a visually overwhelming but technically amateurish body of work that acts as a confession of her own artistic averageness, inviting fellow amateurs and impostors to join her in creating, averagely. With a measure of defiance and vulnerability, the project is ultimately a celebration of the humble act of making itself.