Peter Chan
Peter Chan is a Canadian artist working in Toronto. Chan received his BAA from Sheridan College in 2008. His paintings have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the United States, Hong Kong, and Canada. His work has been included in the 2019 collection of Art with Heart Auction at the Art Gallery of Ontario. He has also been featured in publications such as BOOOOOOOM, Yahoo News, Ming Pao and The Globe & Mail newspaper.
Through the autobiography documentation of imagery around him, he distorts and recomposes imagery to form compositions that allow for new narratives and meaning. His work often documents and analyses themes of superstition, identity, popular culture, traditions, and gender ideologies. The artist uses a mix of contemporary figures to form new narratives by re-introducing them in both historical and contemporary locations.
Chan's latest works delve deeper in the dissection of social practices as informed by urban and traditional Hong Kong and Chinese culture. The artist strives to establish an autobiographical connection with viewers through intricate technical execution and familiar visual narratives, such as scenes inspired from Hong Kong cinema. Chan prompts viewers to contemplate how popular culture influences our understanding of urban living and perception of social identity.
Hi Peter, tell us about your background. How and when did you first start to paint?
I am born in Hong Kong and am a painter currently working in Toronto, Canada. My first encounter with painting was in high school using acrylics as my first medium. Eventually, I started working with oil paints in art college and found that to be my favourite medium which I continue to work with all throughout today. I absolutely love the significance and history oils brought to me, connecting with both contemporary and historical painters.
How do you begin to work? What is your process like?
My work often begin with really rough drawings in my sketchbook or loose pieces of paper. These ideas can come about in the most unusual time of the day such as being on a commute, in the shower, on the plane, or during a conversation with people. I’m often drawing these little thumbnail sketches about ideas and compositions I think may be interesting. Eventually, they may be developed further into painting studies which eventually may develop into even more elaborate and further resolved paintings.
What is the story behind your work? As you mentioned, you focus on documents and analyses themes of superstition, identity, popular culture, traditions, and gender ideologies. How are these concepts appearing in your paintings?
It all depends on the themes I want to convey within a painting or a body of work. These themes are often inspired by my everyday life interests which can come from a variety of places such as conversations I listen to around my family and friends, observing my life from childhood to adolescent, and observing the world with a curious lens.
For example, one of my paintings, titled ‘Silly Superstition’ was inspired by a personal story in my childhood and teenage years. The story and concept of the piece came about when I was growing up and being told by my parents and grandparents that I should not leave any grains of rice in the bowl and always need to finish every grain of rice. They would say that every grain of rice left in the bowl would appear in my future partner’s face. This is an odd superstition that I thought had only occurred in my household. When sharing this with friends of other asian households, I had found that it was a superstition told by many of theirs also.
How do you show the urban and traditional Hong Kong and Chinese popular culture in your works, and What do you hope people will understand from seeing and interacting with your work?
I sometimes reference iconic moments, ideas, and scenes from popular culture, films, and every day life in my paintings. For me, personally growing up in Hong Kong in the early years of my life have definitely shaped me in one way or another. Then eventually spending a long time growing up in Canada also influenced and allowed me to see both east and west traditions and that has really brought a lot of interesting perspectives to me.
During my early years, I was naturally exposed to what was available to me while in Hong Kong. I watched a lot of Hong Kong, Japanese, and Korean soap operas, animation, and films in the late 80s and early 90s. My parents both worked very demanding jobs and I spent a lot of time in my childhood in front of TVs, playing video games, collecting stamps and trading cards with friends, and playing sports. Reflecting on these experiences, I can find some parallels as how they have shaped me.
Often, I create work that I want to see exist in this world. I truly trust that I am not alone in observing multiple layers of the world within one painting or a body of work. I trust that when others see and interact with my work, they may also feel and see the things that I find fascinating about the world.
Describe a real-life situation that inspired you.
This actually happens quite often and in many ways its the foundation of my work.
One example in particular that comes to mind, is during my trip to China in 2017.
I was travelling with a group of friends, and we were walking up a mountain called ‘Mount Tai’. During this walk, being my first time there I had very curious eyes observing and scanning the landscape of this mountain. I noticed many unassuming and odd things on my walk up. In particular, I noticed this odd composition of peaches on top of tin cans from one of the fruits vendor there. A collection of peaches were being kept fresh by a stream of water through a hose, as the peaches are suspended by metal tins and buckets. This to me somehow reminded me of a painting by Picasso, which was a still life painting titled ‘Still Life with Pitcher and Apples’ in 1919.
While the composition I witnessed was different, it had traces of similarity to Picasso’s painting. Picasso’s painting had apples on top of a plate which was on top of a pitcher. I thought that was interesting that what I witnessed from that fruit vendor had reminded me of Picasso’s painting. I then stopped my friends and went to take photos of that unassuming set up from the fruit vendor. These photos ended up being the reference material for a painting later on when I returned back to my studio. The painting I ended up creating inspired by this experience is titled ‘Still Life on Mount Tai’.
