Hung-Ju Kan
MFA ’20 Fine Arts 2D
“Through extensive all-over painting inspired by Taiwanese floral-pattern cloth, I want to create a safe place, a security blanket, where you can dream, escape from reality, and release stress.” – Hung-Ju Kan Examining from both eastern and western lenses, Kan’s work explores an innovative technique inspired by the traditional Chinese Landscape painting. Instead of using ink brush to draw the contours of an object, Kan incorporates floral patterns from Tainan and various shades of colors to portray reality and virtuality, creating an unique rhythm and flow to his work. The floral pattern cloth has a variety of textures and design, which can be found on the wall paper, table cloth, bedsheets, window curtain, dress, and many other ordinary items. Through combining bits and pieces of the floral pattern cloth from his hometown, Kan expresses cure for nostalgia by re-organizing layers of fragmented memories and emotional sustenances into a diverse, inclusive, and expandable blanket.
Featured in:
Kan was born in Tainan, Taiwan in 1993. He graduated from National Taiwan University of Arts with a BFA in Painting and Calligraphy Arts. He received the MFA in Fine Art 2D at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2020. He is living in Brooklyn and working with Cereus Art.
