Amy Chan was born in 1978 in Danbury, CT. She earned her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Her paintings draw inspiration from the ecosystems of the East Coast where she lives, and the places she discovers through travel. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Onoma Fiskars in Finland and the Jentel Foundation in Wyoming. Chan lives and works in Richmond, VA, and has recently received grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Chan’s abstract paintings are views of the natural world multiplied into the bizarre. The richly layered surfaces combine gouache, acrylic, airbrush and screen print, while taking cues from microscopic imagery, decorative pattern, coral reefs and outer space.

Education

Virginia Commonwealth University, MFA Painting
Rhode Island School of Design, BFA Painting

Select Solo Exhibitions

2017
Page Bond Gallery, Field of Play, Richmond, VA

2015
En Em Art Space, Moon Bounce, Sacramento, CA

2013
Arlington Arts Center, Arlington, VA

2011
Mercy Gallery, Petrified Forest, Windsor, CT

2008
Carroll and Sons, Stonehenge Rising, Boston, MA

2007
Bernard Toale Gallery, The Great Eastern Forest, Boston, MA

2006
Evergreen House at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

2005
Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT

Select Group Exhibitions

2019
1708 Gallery, 13 South, Richmond, VA

2018
Mountain Gallery, Private Eyes, Brooklyn, NY
Page Bond Gallery, Glow-Glimmer-Sparkle-Shine, Richmond, VA

2017
Mountain Gallery, win-dow-sill, Brooklyn, NY
OpenSpace, Blame it on the Rain, Baltimore, MD
Charismatic Chroma, Bronx Arts Space, Bronx, NY
Geoforms, JanKossen Contemporary, New York, NY

2016
Athenaeum Gallery, Color Disorder, Arlington, VA
Sixteen Sixteen, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA
Trestle Gallery, Introductions, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbithole Projects, Plant Sale, Brooklyn, NY
Swelter, Page Bond Gallery, Richmond, VA

2015
Page Bond Gallery, Shimmer, Richmond, VA
The Center for Book Arts, Then and Now, New York, NY
Castle Gallery, The College of New Rochelle, Then and Now, New Rochelle, NY

2014
En Em Art Space, Sugar Rush, Sacramento, CA
Ruffin Gallery, Radio Galaxy, Charlottesville, VA
Selden Gallery, Color Disorder, Norfolk, VA
Mint Gallery, Live Amateurs, Atlanta, GA
Works on Paper Benefit for the Lower East Side Artists Alliance, New York, NY

2013
Pierogi 2000, Unhinged, Brooklyn, NY
The Bishop Gallery, Curating for a Cure, Brooklyn, NY

2012
Nancy Margolis Gallery, Permanent Collection, New York, NY
1708 Gallery, Crest, Richmond, VA
Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia, New Natural History, Charlottesville, VA

2011
Pierogi 2000, Twin Twin, Brooklyn, NY
The Washington Project for the Arts, Options, Washington, DC
Rebekah Templeton Contemporary Art, Spotlights, Philadelphia, PA

2010
Catskill Arts Center, Utopia and Wallpaper, Livingston Manor, NY
Ruffin Gallery, University of Virginia, Painting Paper, Charlottesville, VA
Cole Art Center, Life at the Edge: Forest Pathology, Nagodoches, TX

2009
Gallery Em, New Environments: Amy Chan and Jin Lee, Seoul, South Korea
Mount Airy Contemporary, On the Fringe of Nature, Philadelphia, PA
Abrons Art Center Gallery, Twin Infinities, New York, NY

2008
Hewitt Gallery, Marymount Manhattan College, Diversity and Dynamism, NY, NY
Salvatore Ferragamo Gallery, Renaissance, New York, NY
Platform Gallery, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Everywhere and Nowhere, NY, NY

2007
Pierogi 2000, (Un)Natural Selection, Brooklyn, NY
Hudson Franklin, Future Yonder, New York , NY
SixSpace, Uncharted Territory, Los Angeles, CA
Columbus College of Art and Design, Consumption Junction, Columbus, OH

2006
Katonah Museum of Art, I © the Burbs, Katonah, NY
Leubsdorf Gallery, Hunter College, Transparent/Opaque, New York, NY

2005
PS122 Gallery, Megacorp, New York, NY
Wave Hill, Out of Bounds, Riverdale, NY

2004
The Bronx Museum, AIM 24, Bronx, NY

Select Bibliography

2015
“Pop Nostalgia and Protozoa Props”, Sacramento News and Review, Nov. 2, 2015

2013
Hecker, Neal, dir. Art Loft. WPBT2. Miami, FL, 24 Sept. 2013. Television.
Press, Alex, “Four New Resident Artists on the Island”, Key West Citizen, July 13, 2013

2012
Lord, Jo, “1708 Gallery Opens 7-Artist Show”, Richmond Times Dispatch, Sept 13, 2012
Barnabi, Rebecca, “Seven Female Artists Featured in Crest Opening at 1708
Gallery this Friday”, www.examiner.com, Sept 3, 2012

2011
Bresnahan, Barbara, “Painter Amy Chan Exhibition to Open The Year at MercyGallery”, Windsor Patch, Sept. 1, 2011
Ruby; Otherworldliness, Berlin, Gestalten Publishers, 2011

2008
Davis, B., “Armory Action”, Artnet, Mar. 21, 2008

2007
“Going Out Gurus Blog”, The Washington Post, Aug. 2, 2007
“Goings On About Town”, The New Yorker Magazine, July 23, 2007
Gomez, Edward M., “Back to the ‘Burbs”, Art and Antiques Magazine, May 2007, p. 70

2006
Gennochio, Benjamin, “The Place We Call Home”, The New York Times, Feb. 12, 2006
Hershenson, Roberta, “There’s More to It Than a Manicured Lawn”,The New York Times, Jan. 8, 2006

2005
Gennochio, Benjamin “Bringing the Outside Indoors

Select Collections

The Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital, Baltimore, MD
Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS
The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY
Hallmark Inc., Kansas City, MO
Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA
Prudential Financial, Boston, MA
Capital One, Richmond, VA
City of Scottsdale, AZ

Awards & Honors

2016
Artist in Residence, Artist House, St. Mary’s City, MD

2014
Artist in Residence, Mountain Lake Biological Station, Pembroke, VA

2013
Virginia Commission for the Arts Fellowship in Painting
Artist in Residence, The Studios Key West, Key West, FL

2011
The Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant

2010
Artist in Residence, Petrified Forest National Park, Petrified Forest, AZ

2009
Artist in Residence, Onoma Fiskars Artist, Fiskars, Finland
Artist in Residence, I-Park Artist, East Haddam, CT

2007
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship

2006
Artist in Residence, The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY

2005
Lower East Side Printshop Special Editions Fellowship, New York, NY
Artists Alliance Rotating Studio Program, New York, NY

2004
Artist in Residence, Abrons Art Center Workspace Program, New York, NY
Artist in Residence, Jentel Foundation, Sheridan, WY

Public Art

2015
Freeman Drug Court Lobby, Key West, FL, Individual Works

2011
The Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, Baltimore, MD, Individual Works
Scottsdale Civic Center Mall, Scottsdale Public Art Belle Arts, Scottsdale, AZ

2008
Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, Permanent Mural

Academic Appointments

Lecturer in Drawing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

My paintings are fragments of nature multiplied into bizarre abstraction. With an interest in historic pattern, protozoa, coral reefs and outer space, I build a vocabulary of shapes that relate to the natural world but are never clearly real. I research historic color palettes and find satisfaction in garish combinations that refer to the familiar culture of cheap plastic goods and pop nostalgia. I often work on multiple pieces at once, combining energetic layers of gouache, acrylic, airbrush and screen print. The paintings draw from design history to invent their own stylized language of forms from nature. This in conversation with exaggerated shapes and a joyously artificial color palette help to stage a darkly humorous view of the natural world.