Xiaojing Yan facts for kids

Xiaojing Yan (simplified Chinese 闫晓静, last name is Yan) is a contemporary Chinese Canadian artist known for her work in sculpture, installation and public art.

Early life and career

Xiaojing Yan (born 1978, Jiangsu, China) received her Bachelors in Decorative Art from Nanjing Arts Institute in 2000. In 2004 she received degree from George Brown College and in 2007 she received an MFA degree in sculpture from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, United States.

As an artist migrating from China to North America, both her identity and her work pass through the complex filters of different countries, languages, and cultural expectations. Yan has exhibited at Maison Hermès Shanghai, Suzhou Museum, Royal Ontario Museum, Varley Art Gallery, TRUCK Contemporary Art, Calgary; Plug In Contemporary, Winnipeg; Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey; Varley Art Gallery in Markham. Her work was featured at Toronto International Art Fair in 2012 and 2014.

Yan was commissioned by Hermès to design the 2019 summer window for Maison Hermès in Shanghai accompanied by her solo exhibition in the Maison. In 2021, Hermès commissioned her to create “Emergence” a permeant installation for the new store in Shanghai.

Work

"Yan’s poetic explorations delve into the meaning of spirituality and the transformation of self. Yan draws on personal experience from her earlier life in China and eventual immigration to Canada in reimagining these traditional visual languages through a contemporary perspective." In her 2018 exhibition In Suspended Silence, at the Richmond Art Gallery in British Columbia, Canada, "Yan combined two bodies of work that derive from classical Chinese ink wash painting and portrait sculpture." "It is through the use of traditional Chinese materials and art-historical references that her work navigates a transformative space between culture and identity. "

“Lingzhi Girl” #10, one of Yan’s iconic works, made the cover of Art in America March 2022 issue. This series of evocative figures of human and animal forms inspired by Chinese mythology and folktales. Yan cultivate lingzhi mushroom sculptures form the mould she created through a painstaking, suspenseful experiment by mixing the mushroom spores and woodchips together and incubating the blend in a specially constructed mold. Carefully controlling humidity, temperature and light, a lingzhi mycelium starts to grow and once it has assumed the proper shape and a viable state, the mold is removed. The fragile sculpture, with its mushroom surface, continues to evolve. No longer controlled by the artist but assuming a form determined by nature, it might be considered a collaboration classified as a combination of art, science experiment, and natural process. “In this series, Yan’s investigations, in which metaphoric and physical worlds quietly interpenetrate each other, delve into the meaning of spirituality and metamorphoses, as well as raising other questions about being and becoming through the lens of art and nature, art and science, art and culture and their interconnections. ” - Lilly Wei

Solo exhibitions

• 2021 Pines, Needles, Mushrooms, Ink, Paint, Chinese American Arts Council/Gallery 456, New York City, USA. Curated by Lilly Wei         
• 2019 Dreamland, Hermès Maison, Shanghai, China, together with the "Into the Dreams" window display
• 2019 A Wanderer’s Mind, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, ON, Canada
• 2018 In Suspended Silence, Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC, Canada
• 2018 Auspicious Omens, Suzhou Museum, Suzhou, China
• 2017 Out From Among the Tranquil Woods, Varley Art Gallery, Markham, Ontario, Canada
• 2017 Between the Water and Mountains, Zhangjiagang Museum, Zhangjiagang, China
• 2017 Floating, Durham Art Gallery, Durham, Ontario, Canada
• 2015 Hybrid Vigour, The Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, Canada
• 2015 Cloud Cell, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Canada
• 2015 New Growth-Breath in Unison, Orleans Gallery, Ottawa School of Art, Canada
• 2014 Red and White Melody, +15 WINDOW SPACE, Truck Contemporary Art Gallery, Calgary, Canada
• 2014 Innocence & Experience, Lonsdale Gallery, Toronto, Canada
• 2012 A Grasp of Shadows, Red Head Gallery, Toronto, Canada
• 2011 New Growth, Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant, Brantford, Canada
• 2011 Bridge, Artspace, Peterborough, Canada

Select group exhibitions

• 2022 The Art of Living on Community, Immigration, and the Migration of Symbols, Canadian Culture Centre,  Paris, France
• 2022 Tiger Show, Meili Ruins Museum, Wuxi, China
• 2021 Qi of Water, Art Gallery of Mississauga, ON, Canada
• 2020 The 5th Documentary Exhibition of Fine Arts – Physis: Production of Nature, Human and Technology, Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China
• 2020  If a Turtle Could Talk, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2020  Resistance and Resilience, the Warren G. Flowers Art Gallery, QC, Canada
• 2019  Biennale internationale du lin de Portneuf, Québec city, QC, Canada
• 2019 The Experiment, Dunlop Art Gallery, RPL Film Theatre, Regina Public Library, Regina, SK, Canada
• 2019 Shaping Time, Latcham Art Centre, Stouffville, ON, Canada
• 2019 The Experiment, Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, SK, Canada
• 2018 Glimmers of the Radiant Real, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, ON, Canada. Toured to the McIntosh Gallery, London, ON (2019); the Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, ON (2019); and The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford, BC (2020).
• 2018 Convenience, 2018 Myseum Intersections Festival, Toronto, ON Canada
• 2017 Into You: Fall in Deep, Humber Galleries, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2012 (Da Bao) (Takeout), Varley Art Gallery, Markham, ON. Toured to the Art Gallery of Mississauga, ON (2012); Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, Winnipeg, MB (2013); and the Surrey Art Gallery, Surrey, BC, (2014).

Public art

• 2018 Dwelling, City of Burlington Plain Road Public Art, ON, Canada
• 2018 Cloudscape, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2017 Sound of the Rain, Elora Centre for the Arts, Elora, ON, Canada
• 2017 Nature’s Bounty, AquaBlu Condo Development at Town of Grimsby, ON, Canada
• 2016 Moon Gate, Permanent Public Art Commissioned by Jinji Lake Art Museum, Suzhou, China
• 2013 Couldscape, Seneca College, Toronto, ON, Canada
• 2010 Reflection, Downtown Bike Rack design, City of Burlington’s Public Art Program, ON, Canada

Awards

Yan is the recipient of the 2014 Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, the 2013 Mandarin Profile Awards of Fairchild TV and The Chalmers Arts Fellowship.

• 2021 InStyle Women Increation Prize in Visual Arts
• 2018 OAAG Exhibition Installation and Design Award, Ontario Associate of Art Galleries
• 2011 Best of Show Award, Annual Juried Exhibition, The Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, Ontario, Canada