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Kai Chan: Rainbow Lakes

Kai Chan. Moon in Water (detail) 2001. Bamboo, balsawood, dye, oil paint, gesso, 59 x 297 x 24 cm. Collection of the artist. Photo by Art Gallery of Mississauga.

Kai Chan emigrated from Hong Kong to Toronto in 1966. A designer of jewellery, interiors, and theatre, he also builds wall-mounted constructions of objects and fibre. Rainbow Lakes surveys Kai’s recent sculptural works, many of which assume the form of landscape elements. The strung toothpick works produce shimmering, pixillated, effects. Some contain as many as 10,000 dyed and hand-painted toothpicks. Equally ephemeral, the shelter-like structures composed of recycled wood and other organic materials evoke the artist’s childhood in rural China.

As the agent of this body of work, Kai deploys principles of craft, design and poetry to situate himself as a gay man, a gardener, and a person of Chinese descent.

Opening Reception
Jointly with Janice Wright Cheney: Disorderly Creatures on Sunday, 13 January.

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