Chin Yuen was already drawing at a young age. Even before the Victoria-based artist started kindergarten, she knew she loved art. However, she didn’t make the decision to become a professional artist until she was in her 30s. Yuen completed a master of arts in English Literature at UVic, as well as a teaching degree in the arts. After graduation, she moved to Japan, then Italy; in 2002, after saving money to invest in her art career, she moved back to Canada.
“I just threw myself 100 percent into working as a painter,” she says, “whereas before that I was teaching art and making art on the side, never completely committed.”
During her childhood, Yuen was obsessed with drawing people. She was always perfecting the human form in her drawings and paintings. As time went on, she experienced a need for change. Yuen decided to switch over and paint abstract art; she soon fell in love with the challenges.
“If you have control over your skills, there’s freedom in whatever you want to do,” she says. “I think that it’s easy to splash around—that’s for sure—but I think there’s a lot of skills involved with abstraction, too. It’s commonly assumed that abstraction is much easier because it’s formless, in some ways.”
Last year, Yuen completed an artist residency in Berlin, where she created a series of 25 paintings based on her photos of things around town that interested her. She wanted to create a unique souvenir for herself that played on the idea that our memory is very subjective. Yuen image-transferred the photos onto canvas and then painted on top of that, creating abstract art pieces.
“It evolves with such a degree of abstraction,” she says. “That whole enactment plays on the idea and it also exaggerates the idea that our memory goes through many layers of removal, the very experience that we have.”
When Yuen came home to Victoria, she was inspired to carry the idea forward, creating a solo exhibition, Wanderlust and Souvenirs, based on her travels. The exhibit has paintings that evolved from experiences in Morocco, Hong Kong, and Germany.
“The souvenirs that I’ve collected are unique because they are not the typical trinkets that you buy,” she says.
To Yuen, the concept of “wanderlust” represents the fact that she has moved so often in her life. She’s lived in six countries, and she currently has a second home in Berlin.
“I associate moving as a way of broadening my horizon and improving myself,” she says. “With that kind of movement, I find it really excites me.”
But for Yuen, wanderlust is more than getting the travel bug; it’s the thirst for experiencing different cultures, absorbing different ideas, and seeing how people live. She hopes people will walk away from her exhibit with an inspiration to paint and to create, as well as with a sense of intrigue.
“I think that acrylics can do so much,” she says. “It is such an exciting thing.”
The exhibit also finds Yuen coming back to square one and embracing her love of art, as she did when she was a kid.
“It took me all that time to finally say, ‘Yes, I cannot possibly live without ever giving it 100 percent.’ I never regret any of the education I went through,” she says. “I never regret all the detours I took because they made me a richer person.”
Wanderlust and Souvenirs
Until Tuesday, August 14
Free, Fortune Gallery
fortunegallery.ca