Residency: January. 27-February Feb. 5, 2020

Reception: February Feb. 5, // 4-6 p.m.

SANTA MONICA, CA—Los Angeles-based artist, writer and educator Audrey Chan, whose research-based projects articulate political and cultural identities through allegory and the feminist principle of the “personal is political,” will be the artist-in-residence at Crossroads School’s Sam Francis Gallery this winter. During her residency, Chan will develop the first installment of An Illustrated Vocabulary of Tenderness, a series of gouache paintings on paper about family storytelling and learning languages.

The works will reference language flash cards—specifically the Chinese-English flash cards Chan would study as a child—and feature images and vocabulary rooted in her Chinese and Jamaican American family lore. The project is a continuation of work about the role of the allegorical and the power of images and language in the construction of identity. Chan will open up her practice to visiting classes, inviting students to create identity flashcards of their own.

Audrey Chan earned a bachelor's degree with honors from Swarthmore College and a master of fine arts degree from California Institute of the Arts. Chan’s solo and collaborative work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design, Chinese American Museum, Parc Saint Léger, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and other venues in the U.S. and abroad. She is a recipient of grants from the California Community Foundation and Center for Cultural Innovation. She was previously an artist-in-residence at the École des Beaux-arts de Nantes in France. Chan’s writing has been published in Afterall Journal, East of Borneo, the Getty Iris and she co-edits SABOTEURS zine. Her projects have been featured in Artforum Critics’ Picks, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post and LA Weekly and on NPR and KPCC. From 2007 to 2016, she worked in the field of museum education at the New Museum, MoMA and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Chan was commissioned by LA Metro to create a large-scale public artwork for the future Little Tokyo/Arts District station, opening in 2022. She is currently a visiting artist faculty member at California Institute of the Arts. audreychan.net