New York artist Anne Chu died on Monday from cancer at age 57, according to an announcement from her New York gallery, Tracy Williams, Ltd.

Chu showed most recently in the solo exhibition “Rubric for the Eye,” at Williams. In a blurb on the show, the New Yorker magazine called her “an artist of slyly complicated charm,” saying that her work “affects the mind like a fairy tale.”

In materials like porcelain and leather, Chu’s sculptures, sometimes in the form of mobiles, frequently explored animal imagery, depicting horses, bears, and rabbits as well as animal-human hybrids.

“Embedded with ancient and historical influences, including Tang dynasty funerary figures and Austrian marionettes, Chu channeled spirits of cultures past,” wrote Williams in the announcement of the artist’s passing.

Chu, who earned an MFA from Columbia University in 1985, had staged solo exhibitions at 303 Gallery (New York), Donald Young Gallery (Chicago), Victoria Miro Gallery (London), and Monica De Cardenas (Milan), as well as the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, NY, among other venues.

Chu was also included in group exhibitions at institutions including the Brooklyn Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She was also recognized via a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship (2010) and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (1999). Her work was written about in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Frieze, and Art in America, among other publications.

“She was so supportive of everyone in her community,” said Lisa Spellman, founder of 303 Gallery, speaking to artnet News by phone. “She saw art from so many different perspectives. She was a tremendously generous artist. We were lucky to show her, and we’re devastated.”