Ying Kit Chan
Biography: Born 1953 in Hong Kong, Chinese-American artist.
In the 70's, Ying Kit Chan studied art in several colleges in Hong Kong including Hong Kong Baptist College, Hong Kong Polytechnic, and Hong Kong Buddhist College. In 1979, Chan continued his study in the United States and received his BFA from the University of Oklahoma (1981) and MFA from the University of Cincinnati (1983). Since 2003, he has been attending the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee (Switzerland) and Paris, and has taken seminars with some of the world's most visionary thinkers including the late Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard.
Ying Kit Chan has presented his art work in 200 exhibitions in the United States as well as in Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Korea, Japan, England, Hong Kong, Poland, Taiwan, and Portugal. His solo exhibitions include INDEXG Gallery (2010, 2007) in Toronto, LEE Gallery in Toronto (2001), Gallery 456 in New York (1999), Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taipei (1993), Taiwan Museum of Art in Taichung (1992) and A.R.C. Gallery in Chicago (1989). Chan has received public awards including two Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Visual Arts Fellowships (1994 and 2002), a National Endowment for the Arts / Southern Arts Federation Visual Arts Fellowship (1992) and an Urban Council Fine Arts Award at the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial in 1977. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Louisville.
Ying Kit Chan: Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology marks a recent conceptual development in Ying Kit Chan’s more than three decades of art making. The work deals with the deep ecological worldview, which emphasizes interconnectivity and harmony in our universe. Deep Ecology is a direct reference to the writings of the contemporary environmental movement, which celebrates the richness and diversity of all life forms. Chan creates images of deteriorating industrial landscapes and environmental disasters alongside plant life, revealing the artist’s understanding of the built environment and the natural world as a volatile system compelled to evolve cohesively. The manifestation of this process in the forms of acrylic painting, charcoal drawings, mono-prints, photography and mixed media, declare his commitment to intellectual inquiry and the creation of paths to knowledge that evolve through the expression, transmission, interpretation and re-interpretation of ideas and perceptions.
