February 10 – March 11, 2023
Janet Wang
Ports of Entry
Reception + Talk: Friday February 10th, 5-7pm
Ports of Entry explores what it means to be Chinese in Canada. It encompasses a range of media, from traditional drawings and paintings, to animated and interactive artwork. This body of work was researched and conceptualized from 2018 – 2021, culminating in an extended trip through British Columbia in 2021, to research the history of Chinese settler migration from the late 1800s. Janet’s trip wound along the Gold Rush Trail and alongside the railway routes carved into the mountainsides by Chinese labourers. She recorded the juxtapositions of the celebrated histories and landmarks with the indelible marks left on the landscape by the labour of Chinese settlers. Movement and migration write on to the landscape who has privilege, who must pay, who is held apart and separate. She pays homage to the canons and traditions of history – both artistic and quotidian – in order to use the familiar as a meeting point with the viewer.
Janet Wang is a visual artist and educator working within a traditional painting practice, integrated with sculptural installation practices and digital media. A second-generation settler of Chinese heritage, she is based in Vancouver, Canada, the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia and her Master of Arts in Studio Practice from the University of Leeds in England.
Her work explores the construction of identity through the appropriation and disruption of social patterns and familiar gestures.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and she is represented through the Art Rental and Sales, operated by the Vancouver Art Gallery. Residencies have included the Arts Council of England, ArtStarts, the Burnaby Arts Council, Artscape Gibraltar, Artist for Kids with the North Vancouver School District and the Wassaic Project. She has received awards from the Vancouver Foundation, BC Arts Council and the Canada Council of Arts.
