Ed Pien. Interlacing, Nets, and Spirits of the Waters
50-50 Series - Encounter #7

Ed Pien is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist of Taiwanese birth.  He has brought with him to Canada a sensitivity to Asian mythologies, the spirits of the dead, and the monsters and ghosts of the past.  His hybrid figures emerge from intricate webs; nets, patterns and constellations of all kinds catch and hold characters that are sometimes symbolic and sometimes generic as in Ancient Pine, the work that links the spaces of the Canadian Cultural Centre and those of the Canadian Embassy in France.

Watch the interview he did with Catherine Bédard, curator of the exhibitions and deputy director of the Canadian Cultural Centre.

One element constantly recurs in the practice of this master of the in-between worlds: water.  The water of ink in which the eminently fluid figures are diluted, the precious water of the ancestral lands for which Indigenous peoples are fighting, the water of parks and pools, and the waters that isolate islands.

Born in Taipei, Taiwan, Ed Pien immigrated to Canada with his family at the age of eleven. Pien has shown extensively, both nationally and internationally, in venues that include the Drawing Centre, NYC; the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Canadian Culture Centre in Paris; The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; The Art Gallery of Ontario; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal; Songzhuang Art Centre, Beijing; the National Art Gallery of Canada. He has participated in numerous biennials: Montreal, Sydney, Moscow, Beijing and Curitiba (Brazil). He is represented by Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Montreal, and by Birch Contemporary, Toronto.

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As part of its 50^th anniversary, the Canadian Cultural Centre has launched a new schedule of 50 successive virtual encounters with Canadian artists. In connection with an event, a project or to discuss current issues, our curator brings us into the world of these artists, during an interview filmed remotely, from the artist’s studio and the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris. This is an original thirty-minute interview, each piece of which contributes to an “in progress” portrait of Canadian art in the specific context of the Canada-France relationship.