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Another Life, 2017, cotton net, cane, screen printing ink.

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Another Life

2017

Cotton net, cane, screen printing and sumi ink.

 

Installation: California African American Museum (CAAM), Los Angeles, California | Circles and Circuits: I: History and Art of the Chinese Caribbean Diaspora | September 15, 2017 - February 25, 2018 | Curated by: Alexandra Chang, A/P/A Institute at
 NYU; Steven Y. Wong, CAM; in coordination with Mar Hollingsworth, Visual Arts Curator and Program Manager, CAAM.

In the same vein as earlier works, this installation, comments on the deception of the tropics, a paradise in contrast to the daily realities of the killings and violence in Trinidad and Tobago. In repetition, wing forms inspired by nature are ethereal and collectively beautiful. On closer consideration, they are torn, ripped, stabbed, shot at, broken and stained. The number of forms referring to the number of women killed due to domestic violence in this year alone. Mosquito netting is usually found in bedrooms and supposedly safe spaces but here it is a reminder of persons trapped in violent domestic spaces.

Another Life, 2017
Measure, 2017

Measure of a Life

2017

Slate, oil pen, watercolor, gouache, copper nails, cedar, nuts and bolts, oil on canvas (1983)

 

Installation: Chinese American Museum (CAM), Los Angeles, California | Circles and Circuits II: Contemporary Chinese Caribbean Art | September 15, 2017 - March 11, 2018 | Curated by Alexandra Chang, A/P/A Institute at NYU; Steven Y. Wong, CAM

Studio Image (R) Maria Nunes

 

Measure of a Life, 2017

Salvaged from the childhood home, slate roofing slabs have been cut, drilled and then drawn and painted on recording notations and memories of a life. The juxtaposition of the vertical slabs in a long horizontal line calls to mind a xylophone but also the handscrolls of ancient cultures that recorded customs and legends. This piece attempts to record a father's inventions, creations, teachings and past times before physical space changes and recollection fades. At the end of the long row of slate writing slabs, a small oil painting The Traveller: The other side of the Atlantic, painted while studying in Nova Scotia in 1993, stops the viewer and takes them back to the slate. The lone figure in the painting stands on rocks looking out to sea, cognizant of the same stories and a connection to a homeland.

Measure of a Life, 2017
This is What We Breathe, 2003
This is What We Breathe

2003

Limestone plaster, wire, nylon

Original installation: Radcliffe Institute

Reconfigured installation: Chinese American Museum (CAM), Los Angeles, California | Circles and Circuits II: Contemporary Chinese Caribbean Art | September 15, 2017 - March 11, 2018 | Curated by Alexandra Chang, A/P/A Institute at NYU; Steven Y. Wong, CAM

Kathryn Chan Art

This work was inspired by old 16th Century drawings of dust particles. The aim was to physically represent a shard of light beaming into a space. However, on close inspection, the work is a social commentary on what was happening in the world at the time. The shapes and forms molded in the lime mortar (a medium traditionally used for fresco painting and able to last for centuries) were of images and objects referred to in the daily news at the time. The Gulf war began with bombings and there were tensions across the Middle East. The "dust particles" represented the never-ending visual images of negative human activities that filled our day to day lives and are still relevant today.

Other layers of meaning entered the work. Sahara dust began blowing across the Atlantic, after the drought, and this dust settled into reefs and seas, disrupting the Ecosystem from Florida to South America and changing it forever. Then another blow, a space shuttle blew up on re-entry to the earth atmosphere. A powerful image appeared in the media, of the parts of the shuttle collected and placed as in a puzzle, in an effort to piece together what might have been the cause.

Contact

Untitled, sketchbook page, Sumi ink on paper

Kathryn L Chan

Trinidad and Tobago

M: 1 (868) 749-8083
 

Kathryn Chan Art

E: kathrynlydiachan@gmail.com

Baachacs Collective

E: baachacs.collective@gmail.com

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