About —
This retrospective exhibition brings together 17 major works by Chinese-Canadian artist Kai Chan. Spanning 35 years, these works, which have never been seen together before, reveal the artist’s extraordinary conceptual and formal range and bring to light his very personal manner of observing the natural and the built environment.
Using everyday things such as branches, thread, string, tooth-picks, buttons and recycled plastic objects, and applying mixed-media techniques, he mixes, heaps, wraps weaves, braids, layers, fastens, rolls, twists and stretches them in ways that create fascinating and ingenious installations and sculptures. Though Kai Chan’s oeuvre is primarily associated with textile arts, it touches upon different creative practices that go from jewellery making and basket weaving to the fine arts. Emotionally expressive and marvellously imaginative, Chan’s pieces are characterized by a minimalist use of unexpected materials that are handled in such a way as to symbolize the ordinary in a manner that weds tradition to modernity.
Biography —
Kai Chan was born in China in 1940. He has been living and working in Toronto since 1966. His work is internationally recognized for its experimental approach to textile arts, and it has been shown in Canada, Germany, Australia, Austria, Spain, the USA, Finland, Hungary, Japan, Norway, Holland, Poland, the UK and Sweden. In 1998 Kai Chan wan the Jean A. Chalmers National Crafts Award and, in 2002, the Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in the Crafts. The artist is represented in Québec by the Galerie Elena Lee in Montréal.