Feb 4 to Apr 24, 2022
Karen Tam: With Wings Like Clouds Hung From the Sky 大鵬就振翼
About the Exhibition
For the past several years, Montreal-based artist Karen Tam 譚嘉文 has searched for traces of Lee Chao Nam 李趙南. Lee was a Chinese Canadian painter who lived in Victoria, British Columbia in the 1930s. Little is known about Lee’s life and artistic practice. Having first discovered Lee in the journals of Canadian painter Emily Carr (1871–1945), Tam investigated historical archives, newspapers, and immigration records in an attempt to piece together what little information she could find. This evolving research culminates in the installation With wings like clouds hung from the sky 大鵬就振翼 (2017–ongoing), which re-imagines Lee Nam’s studio.
Tam is not looking to reconstruct a historically accurate display. Instead, her goal is to fill the gallery with the essence, history, and aura that artists’ studios hold in our imagination. By creating a space for Lee in the gallery, Tam aims to help redress the balance of standard Canadian art history discourses by recuperating absent or overlooked racialized artists and their communities. She asks us to consider who gets included and, maybe more importantly, who is excluded, from exhibitions both past and present. A central part of the project is the way Tam traces the lineages and friendships found between artists of multiple generations and cultures. The importance of colleagues and the relationships between teachers and pupils are both made evident through the artists Tam invites to join her in this display. These include Lui Luk Chun 呂陸川, Tam Yuen Yin Law 譚阮嫣娜, Jeannie C. Lee 劉志文, Kileasa Wong 黃吳紫雲, Peter Law 罗建生, Meng Bao Qing 孟寶清, and Sui Sheng Guan 關則開.
This exhibition is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Varley-McKay Art Foundation of Markham, and the City of Markham.
About the Artist
Karen Tam is a Montréal-based artist whose research focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities through installations in which she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe, and China, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She has received grants and fellowships from the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts du Québec, and the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada. Tam was a finalist for the 2017 Prix Louis-Comtois, a finalist for the 2016 Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, and long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Awards.
Tam holds an MFA in Sculpture (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and a PhD in Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London). She is a contributor to the Asia Collections outside Asia: Questioning Artefacts, Cultures and Identities in the Museum (2020) publication edited by Iside Carbone and Helen Wang, to Alison Hulme’s (ed.) book, The Changing Landscape of China’s Consumerism (2014), and to John Jung’s book, Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurant (2010). Her work is in museum and corporate collections including the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Collection Hydro-Québec, Collection Royal Bank of Canada, Microsoft Art Collection, and in private collections in Canada, the United States, and United Kingdom. She is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau in Montreal.
Associated Programs
Lunch and Learn: In Search of Lee Nam
In this talk, Karen Tam speaks about her installation project With wings like clouds hung from the sky (2014-present). This continually evolving project comes out of research into archives and collections, her collaborations with local artist-practitioners of traditional Chinese ink-brush painting, and raises questions about who is included in Canadian art history. Tam will also share some recent discoveries about Lee Nam.
Lunch and Learns are monthly artist talks that provide our community members with the opportunity to learn about current and future exhibitions, as well as hear about ongoing curatorial research happening at the gallery. This program also supports emerging and established artists by providing them with a forum in which to present their work. We would like to thank the Varley-McKay Art Foundation of Markham for their ongoing support of our Lunch and Learn speaker’s series.
Hands-on Chinese Brush Painting Workshops for active meditation
Inspired by the exhibition Karen Tam: With wings like clouds hung from the sky, learn about Chinese brush painting in our free, family-oriented, hands-on workshops.
A form of active meditation, Chinese brush painting is one of the oldest recorded art traditions. Works are executed on rice paper or silk using a brush that has been dipped in black ink or coloured pigments. Typical themes include animals, birds, flowers, and landscapes. Join Sui Sheng Guan or Peter Law as they lead a Chinese painting demonstration where participants learn about the techniques, compositions, and materials used. Gallery visitors are encouraged to explore this art form and paint along.
Chinese Brush Painting with artist Sui Sheng Guan 關則開.\
Sunday, February 20, 2022, 1 to 2:30 PM (EST)
Chinese Brush Painting with artist Peter Law 罗建生
Saturday, March 19, 1 to 2:30 PM (EST)
In May 2009 Peter Law 罗建生 was awarded The Most Influential Visual Art Master by the 9th Chinese Century Awards held by the Beijing Government. In August 2009, his paintings were showcased at The 12th Annual Beijing International Arts Exhibition where he was awarded the Best Creativity title. In 2020, Law 罗建生 was awarded the Mandarin Profile Award (Arts Category) hosted by Canada’s Fairchild Television.
