Kathryn Lydia Chan
Select Work
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.
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
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
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
Kathryn L Chan
Trinidad and Tobago
Kathryn Chan Art
Baachacs Collective