Facing East Facing West

Hissing Rain
written by Holly Lee

Kai never settles on one medium. He’s constantly looking and probing materials around him, excited at the possibility of some new found substance that might tie-in with the project on his mind. Kai’s touch of genius is, no matter how he does it, the signature of the finished piece, or pieces, or the group of work, is unmistakably his own. In the on-line exhibition Facing East Facing West, we present Kai Chan’s rare, small prints from a group of unique silkscreens in various sizes he did in 2016. The inspiration was, as the artist put it, from the practice of Chinese calligraphy. But what we can also find are strokes from his previous large scale installations, two-dimensionalized and compressed into a flat space. We can hear instrumental music, orchestrated amiably, interwreathed into tense and delicate textures, like hissings of the Summer rain.

(Kai Chan has exhibited his work across Canada, the United States, Japan, Australia and Europe. His solo exhibition, ”Rainbow Lakes” began in 2002 traveled to 8 public galleries across Canada. “Kai Chan: Spider's Logic”, a 35 years retrospective exhibition beginning in 2010 is touring to 6 cities. He has received numerous grants from the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council as well as several prestigious awards including the Jean A. Chalmers National Crafts Award [1998], and the Prix Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in the Crafts [2002]. His work is in the following collections: Musée d’art de Joliette, Québec; Musée d’art de Baie-Saint-Paul, Québec; Museum London, London, Ontario; Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK; The Art ;Gallery of Sudbury, Ontario; Musée des Arts Decoratifs de Montréal; The Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Québec; The Library and Gallery, Cambridge, Ontario; Mississauga Living Arts Centre, Ontario; and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Canada.)