Audrey Chan

Center of the Universe, Ahma (detail) is a visual response to heroic populist representations of the immigrant’s journey and the feminist maxim of “the personal is political.” In the tableau, the artist’s grandmother is a matriarchal protagonist who appears and reappears within a landscape that is both peaceable and plagued. Scenes are distilled from the 24-hour news cycle, family lore, and personal obsessions into a graphic narrative “herstory” that spans one wall of the gallery. Chan’s mundane and fantastical vignettes are influenced by the artwork of Saul Steinberg and Öyvind Fahlström, Richard Scarry’s Busytown books, Chinese landscape painting, and the imaginative play between figure and space in Gothic and Renaissance narrative cycles.

Exhibition:

“3 Solo Projects: Audrey Chan, Elana Mann, Chan & Mann”, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, June 22-August 30, 2013