Colette Fu is a Philadelphia-based artist who received her MFA in Fine Art Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2003, and soon after, began devising complex compositions that incorporate photography and pop-up paper engineering. Her pop-up books are housed in esteemed institutions such as the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Library of Congress, the Getty Research Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and many private and rare archive collections. In 2014, Fu participated in a 6-month artist residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, where she continued her "We Are Tiger Dragon" project, an extensive visual exploration of China's ethnic minorities. While there, she also designed China's largest pop-up book, which measures 2.5 x 5 x 1.7 meters. In October 2017, Colette created the world's largest pop-up book, Tao Hua Yuan Ji, which measures 13.8 x 21 feet, which people could enter at the TILT Institute for the Contemporary Image.
Fu's accolades include a 2024 Philadelphia Cultural Treasures Grant, a 2023 Artworks Grant, a 2020 Joan Mitchell Painter's & Sculptors Grant, and the 2018 Meggendorfer Prize for best paper-engineered artist book. Additionally, she was honored with a 2008 Fulbright Research Fellowship to China and received grants from various foundations and organizations such as the Independence Foundation, the Leeway Foundation, En Foco, Red Bull, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Puffin Foundation and the Society for Photographic Education. She has participated in fully funded artist residencies, including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Sacatar, the Vermont Studio Center, the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Visual Studies Workshop, the Millay Colony and the Alden B. Dow Center for Creativity. Fu had solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Asian Arts Initiative, Taubman Museum, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Philadelphia Athenaeum, Philips Museum, and many university art galleries.
As a devoted educator, Fu conducts artmaking classes to amplify community voices through pop-up paper-engineered projects. She leads pop-up courses and community workshops internationally.
”She simply has a way with people, says her friend and artist Sally Blakemore. ‘Colette’s manner of speaking is very subtle and almost shy, but her personality is huge. She doesn’t want to take center stage. Instead, she lets her work speak for itself.” Sally Blakemore, American Craft, July 2015
“Much as her books come to life when they open up, revealing magic and wonder inside, Fu has emerged as a unique and passionate artist by consistently venturing out of her comfort zone. Happy to blend in, she shines reaching out.” Joyce Lovelace, American Craft, July 2015.