Henry Tsang (born 1964 in Hong Kong) is a contemporary Canadian artist. [1] [2]
Tsang was born October 8, 1964, in Hong Kong [1] and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1968. [3] He lives in Vancouver, where he teaches art at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. [4] [2]
Tsang's public artwork Welcome to the Land of Light, a 100-metre long sculpture consisting of a welcome message in Chinook Jargon, is permanently installed on the northern side of False Creek, Vancouver. [5] [6] [7] [8] This work uses fibre optic cable lighting and marine-grade aluminum lettering to highlight texts based on translations to and from Chinook Jargon, a 19th-century trade language local to the Northwest Coast, and English. Welcome to the Land of Light speaks to the histories of immigration in Vancouver and the promise of new technologies (fibre optics). [9]
Tsang's work is included in the Vancouver Public Library's Art Bank collection [10] and in the Canada Council Art Bank. [11]
In 1993 Tsang received a VIVA award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt foundation. [12]
Chinook Jargon is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana while sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language. It is partly descended from the Chinook language, upon which much of its vocabulary is based. Approximately 15 percent of its lexicon is French, and it also makes use of English loanwords and those of other language systems. Its entire written form is in the Duployan shorthand developed by French priest Émile Duployé.
Emily Carr was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the painters in Canada to adopt a Modernist and Post-Impressionist style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her 1929 work, The Indian Church, which is now her best known, until she changed her subject matter from Aboriginal themes to landscapes — forest scenes in particular, evoking primeval grandeur in British Columbia. As a writer Carr was one of the earliest chroniclers of life in her surroundings. The Canadian Encyclopedia describes her as a Canadian icon.
Emily Carr University of Art + Design is a public art university located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The university's campus is located within the Great Northern Way Campus in Strathcona. The university is a co-educational institution that operates four academic faculties: the Faculty of Culture + Community, the Ian Gillespie Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media, the Audian Faculty of Art, and the Jake Kerr Faculty of Graduate Studies.
Jack Leonard Shadbolt, was a Canadian painter.
Bertram Charles Binning, popularly known as B. C. Binning, was best known for his drawings until 1946 when he first exhibited his witty semi-abstract paintings.
Ron Terada is a Vancouver-based artist working in various media, including painting, photography, video, sound, books, and graphic design.
Persimmon Blackbridge is a Canadian writer and artist whose work focuses on feminist, lesbian, disability and mental health issues. She identifies herself as a lesbian, a person with a disability and a feminist. Her work explores these intersections through her sculptures, writing, curation and performance. The novels she has written follow characters that are very similar to Blackbridge's own life experiences, allowing her to write honestly about her perspective. Blackbridge's struggle with her mental health has become a large part of her practice, and she uses her experience with mental health institutions to address her perspective on them. Blackbridge is involved in the film, SHAMELESS: The Art of Disability exploring the complexity of living with a disability. Her contributions to projects like this help destigmatize the attitudes towards people with disabilities. Blackbridge has won many awards for her work exploring her identity and the complexities that come with it.
Marianna Schmidt was a Hungarian-Canadian artist who worked primarily as a printmaker and painter.
Judy Radul is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator. She is known for her performance art and media installations, as well as her critical writing.
Gu Xiong is a Canadian contemporary artist.
Kathy Slade (1966) is a Canadian artist, author, curator, editor, and publisher born in Montreal, Quebec, and based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is currently a Term Lecturer at Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts.
Mina Totino is a Canadian painter currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Totino's work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions in Montreal, Toronto and Berlin. She first came to prominence in the 1985 Young Romantics exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Totino's work is informed by contemporary criticism, especially literary and film criticism that have analyzed the position of the imaginary spectator.
Kelly Wood is a Canadian visual artist and photographer from Toronto, Ontario. Wood’s artistic practice is primarily based in Vancouver, B.C. and London, Ontario.
The VIVA Awards are $15,000 prizes, granted annually to British Columbian mid-career artists chosen for "outstanding achievement and commitment" by the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation. The awards are presented by the Shadbolt Foundation in conjunction with the Alvin Balkind Curator's Prize.
Elizabeth Zvonar is a Canadian contemporary artist who works primarily with mixed-media collage and sculpture based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is currently represented by Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Krista Belle Stewart is a First Nations visual artist from Canada. Stewart works in a variety of formats, using archival materials, photographs, and collage.
Ron Tran is a visual artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Elspeth Pratt is a Canadian contemporary artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Pratt is best known for her colorful sculptures using "poor" materials such as cardboard, polystyrene, balsa wood and vinyl, and for her interest in leisure and consumerism in domestic and public spaces. Her use of humble, crude, unusual materials has sometimes been compared to the Arte Povera movement.
Doris Shadbolt, née Meisel LL. D. D.F.A. was an art historian, author, curator, cultural bureaucrat, educator and philanthropist who had an important impact on the development of Canadian art and culture.
Jan Wade is a Canadian artist known for her work in mixed-media assemblage, painting, sculpture and textiles. Wade draws inspiration from her personal history as a Black Canadian woman with a mixed cultural background. In 2022 her solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery was the first by a Black female artist in the history of that institution.