Ed Pien
Recent activities / News
Ed Pien participated at Cornice Art Fair through Pierre-Francois art contemporain last June while installing Enchantement: a solo exhibition of two large-scale installations at Centre d'art contemporain de Basse-Normadie, A la Halle aux Granges that can be seen until September 8, 2007. He also participated in a group exhibition in London, Drawn Apart: Contemporary Art Projects (June 21 to July 22) as well as preparing through a research trip at Parco delle Madonie in Sicily for a group touring exhibition commencing from Orto Botanical in Palermo on September 28. The exhibition will travel afterwards to Rome and Berlin. In September, his recent works will be presented in a solo exhibition for Bellevue Museum (Washington State) and in a group exhibition at Museum London (Ontario): the Black Box project.
Ed Pien was born in Taipei, Taiwan and moved to Canada when he was 11 years old. He received his Master of Fine Arts from York University in 1984 and his BFA from the University of Western Ontario in 1982. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, in venues that include The Drawing Centre, New York; The New Paradise, Tapei; La Biennale de Montréal; W139, Amsterdam; Contemporary Art Galley, Vancouver; Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto; Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris; Middlesbrough Art Gallery, UK; Parkhaus, Berlin; Museo Ex-Convento del Carmen, Guadalajara; Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico; Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. Ed Pien’s work is in the collections of the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, the Hamilton Art Gallery (Hamilton), the Kamloops Art Gallery, the Museo de Arte y Diseno Contemporaneo, Costa Rica, Museum London, University of Toronto Hart House, Vancouver Art Gallery, Walter Philips Gallery (Banff) and the Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA.
Ed Pien draws on sources both Eastern and Western to create his work, including Asian ghost stories, hell scrolls, calligraphic traditions and the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya. Ed Pien creates sensual, drawing-based installations using ink and translucent paper like Earthly Delights in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The spectator is invited to walk into these floor-to-ceiling environments and approach the half-human, half-animal monsters within. In his most recent body of work, Ed Pien has replaced ink and gouache with an xacto knife in order to produce large-scale paper cuts. In the summer of 2004, Pien travelled to China to continue research on myths and legends found in Chinese folklore; he returned from the trip excited about a form of art that is centuries old in its tradition.1
The artist states: “I resort to the use of large-scale to counter this craft-based process and attempt to avoid and sense of sentimentality and preciousness that seem to go hand-in-hand with most paper-cuts”
Throughout his career, Pien has considered himself indebted to both western and eastern sources for his imagery. He has looked to American artist Kara Walker who took the tradition of paper silhouettes, producing large-scale installations of them that deal with race, gender and sexuality. Pien, in a paper-cut that consists of three life-sized figures crouching and sitting in a tree, presented at Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain in 2006 (see image#), has directly referenced the work of 17th century graphic artist Jacques Callot. Callot was considered to be one of the first great artists to practice graphic arts exclusively. He is perhaps best remembered for a series of etchings documenting the Thirty Years’ War entitled Les misères et les malheurs de la guerre. The particular work that interested Pien was a gruesome etching of people hanging from a tree; Pien has toned down the violence of the imagery by placing his figures in the tree, lending work a more playful and poetic tone. The scale of the work (260 x 488 cm), however, continues to intimidate – we are unsure of what these figures are doing tucked away in the tree. Are they hiding or waiting to attack?
It is this incongruity in Pien’s work that is both disturbing and engaging: the delicacy of paper is juxtaposed to the night marish images that emerge from the intricate cuts, the folklore tradition of the paper-cut is turned inside out to reveal images that both alarm and lure us with their intricate beauty.
1. Gordon Hatt, Tila Kellman & Linda Jansma, “Ed Pien: In a Realm of Others”, Southern Alberta Art Gallery / Robert McLaughlin Gallery (01/2006), p36-37
2.
March 7 - 21
Ed Pien
Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is very pleased to present a recent video by Ed Pien in collaboration with Johannes Zits created in 2004. This work was inspired and produced on the set of Pluie, a dance production by Montréal choreographer Sylvain Émard with set design by Ed Pien. Ed Pien's work is inspired by Asian mythology and Western history. Pien's drawings are highly expressive and spontaneous creations. His drawings conjure up a fantastic and disturbing universe that recalls the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya. Ed Pien also creates sensual, drawing-based installations using ink and translucent paper. The spectator is invited to walk into these floor-to-ceiling environments and approach the half-human, half-animal monsters within.
Ed Pien was born in Taipei, Taiwan and moved to Canada when he was 11 years old. He received his BFA from the University of Western Ontario in 1982 and his MFA from York University in 1984. Since 1981, his work, both playful and sensuous, has been the subject of many exhibits such as The New Paradise, Taiwan (1977) ; The Drawing Centre, New York (2000) ; La Biennale de Montréal (2000 and 2002) ; W139, Amsterdam (2000) ; The Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2000) ; The Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto (2001) ; Museo de Arte y Diseno Contemporaneo, Costa Rica (2001) ; The Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris (2001) ; Middlesbrough Art Gallery, Great Britain (2002) ; The Ottawa Art Gallery (2003) ; Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Montreal (2002) ; Prüss & Ochs Gallery, Berlin (2004).
December 10 - January 21
Ed Pien
Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is proud to present a solo exhibition by Ed Pien from December 10, 2005 to January 21, 2006. Ed Pien’s powerful drawings of hybridize and grotesque figures defy simple categorization. His monstrous creatures allude to our fears and desires, as well as represent forms of social disruption and transgression. Montrealers will remember his large drawing installation Earthly Delights: the Garden and the Fountain of youth seen at the Montreal Biennale 2002 and in the permanent collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. For his first solo show at Pierre-François Ouellette Art Contemporain, Ed Pien will present a selection of drawings, large-scale paper-cuts, and an intimate drawing-based installation.
"The basis for the new installation is a drawing I made this past summer in France that reminded me of Mary Magdalene. As a devoted disciple of Christ, she has been portrayed in countless religious art works as a beautiful and empathetic figure with long flowing hair. What ever happened to her? My own image compelled me to do some research and it is my understanding that Mary Magdalene, by coincidence, spent the last 30 years of her life as a hermit, in France.
The Promise of Solitude contemplates the possibility of what is offered when one embarks on a journey, both inner and outer. Such journeys require abandoning the familiar in order to achieve possible new encounters and transcendence. The video presents a woman spinning. The act gives the impression that she is wrapping the world around her, like a cocoon. She withdraws from the world yet her gaze intensely and confidently engages with the viewer’s. Her movement is enchanting. At times, she seems to defy gravity and floats. With the play of the camera angle and natural sunlight, she also seems to shift back and forth between being an older person and a young maiden.
The lone, life-size ink drawing on glassine is my version of Mary Magdalene. Her hair becomes a furry cloak that protects her. This is a possible metamorphosis if one were to spend 30 years out in the wild. She has four arms, all the more to intensify her searching, beckoning and beseeching. The viewer must negotiate a way through the paper-cut labyrinth and enter into the glowing red structure located within, in order to see “out”. The strange beings encountered at the end of these brightly coloured tunnels metaphorically represent a new realm, somewhat frightening, as these creatures are not yet namable. However, this site is a joyous and celebratory place to be. " Ed Pien
The artist would like to thank the Canada Council for its support.
Artist Talk (in collaboration with Atelier Circulaire): Sunday December 11 at 2:00 pm.
September 21- October 27, 2002
Ed Pien: Manifestations: Chosen Drawings by Ed Pien
The artist Ed Pien, represented by the gallery Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, will participate in the Montreal Biennal from September 26 to November 3. Concurrently, he has been invited to curate an exhibition of drawings at the gallery. His selection of works highlights the place of narration in today's drawing pratices. Works by internationally recognized artists like Roland Sohier (Amsterdam) and Kim Moodie (London, Ontario) and by remarkable young artistes like Oscar Camilo de las Flores (Mexico/Toronto) and Christopher Lori (Toronto) will be presented. An important new suite of new drawings by Ed Pien will also be featured.
Ed Pien comments on, his selection:
For the upcoming exhibition at Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, I have brought together a group of artists who all share a love for drawing. These five people come from diverse backgrounds and are at varying stages of their development. While each artist's style of work is quite different from each other's, they are all figuratively based and suggest a sense of theatre and drama. Ultimately, the commonality found in their work is a sense of urgency: an urgency to make manifest arresting and enchanting images.
Oscar Camilo de las Flores makes carefully rendered and minutely detailed large-scale drawings. Populated with cavorting figures, these impossible microcosms parody and critique our own socio-political systems.
Cinematic in approach, each passage of Christopher Lori's intimate charcoal drawings evokes haunting, dream-like realms, both seductive and unsettling.
Kim Moodie's fine ink drawings record epic scenes in which both real and imaginary histories and mythologies are re-enacted.
Roland Sohier takes a more autobiographical approach, often including himself among the cast of characters depicted. The complexity and potency of his work lie in the strange mix of playful humor with seemingly opposing, darker and more sinister elements.
Through his work, Ed Pien attempts to create a visceral journey into the conscious and unconscious worlds of reality and make-believe in order to make evident our subliminal vulnerabilities.
The gallery, the curator and Ed Pien would like to acknowledge the generous support of the Royal Embassy of the Netherlands in Ottawa and the Prins Bernhard Cuulturfonds.