Following a summer break, Surrey Art Gallery’s first Thursday Artist Talk of the fall will focus on the larger-than-life animal drawings of Fiona Tang.
On Sept. 5, the New Westminster-based artist will talk about “Drawing Without Fear” at the Bear Creek Park facility, starting at 7 p.m. Admission is free.
Tang’s large animal drawings aim to impress with their sheer size.
In her illustrated talk, Tang will share her drawing process, including overcoming the initial fear of putting marks on mural-size blank paper. A prominent technique she uses is trompe l’oeil (meaning “deceives the eye”) to create the illusion that the animals are coming out of the paper.
“Through my large-scale drawings, my hope is to minimize the distance between humans and animals,” Tang, a Burnaby resident, says in a bio posted to facebook.com/fionatangart.
“I want the viewers to engage with my work emotionally and/or physically and be overwhelmed with a sense of vulnerability and wonder by the sheer size. Through interacting with these animals, the audience is made aware of their existence and I hope to reverse the passive relationship between the viewer and artwork.”
A grad of the drawing program at Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Tang works with charcoal, chalk pastel and acrylic to create her drawings. She has exhibited at Richmond Art Gallery, Anvil Centre, Queen Elizabeth Theatre and other venues.
Earlier this year, Tang won Surrey Art Gallery Association‘s first Competitive Art Paint-Off.
This fall, the association’s Thursday Artist Talk calendar includes presentations by Ron Long on “The Art, Technique and Challenge of Nature Photography” (on Oct. 3) and Suzie Hartford on “A Garden of Wings” (Nov. 7).
Also at Surrey Art Gallery, the 20th anniversary of the facility’s TechLab will be celebrated on Sept. 21 with the opening of Garden in the Machine, a group exhibit of leading digital artists in Canada.
“The six featured artists (Faisal Anwar, Helma Sawatzky, Leila Sujir, Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Paisley Smith and Robert Youds) make large images and environments that question the limits of technology and nature,” a gallery release says.
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