Presentation of the work:

Bubbles and Sea Anemones, 2024,
Printed fabric (scarf type)
Printed mulberry silk habotai. Inv: KT2024TX002, 135 x 31 cm
Limited edition of 20 copies (here 2/20)
Estimated value $900

This piece is from a set of silk scarves I designed, inspired by the Chung Collection at the University of UBC, and created for the Whispering Jade Bazaar installation. They replicate in colour a black-and-white illustration of a scarf in a Vancouver Chinatown store catalogue of the 1940s, the floral patterns found on a qipao worn for a studio portrait, and the motif found on a wooden biscuit mould.

Presentation of the artist:

Karen Tam 譚嘉文 is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist and curator whose research focuses on the constructions and imaginations of cultures and communities. In her installations, she recreates Chinese restaurants, karaoke lounges, opium dens, curio shops and other sites of cultural encounters. Since 2000, she has exhibited her work and participated in residencies in North America, Europe, and China, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, He Xiangning Art Museum, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Deutsche Börse Residency at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, and the Toronto Biennial of Art. She has received grants and fellowships from the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts du Québec, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Tam’s exhibition, Swallowing Mountains, presented by the McCord Stewart Museum, received an Honourable Mention at the 2024 Canadian Museums Association Awards. She was the winner of the 2021 Giverny Capital Prize awarded by the Fondation Giverny pour l’art contemporain, a finalist for the 2017 Louis-Comtois Prize, a finalist for the 2016 Prix en art actuel from the Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec, and long-listed for the 2010 and 2016 Sobey Art Awards.

Tam holds a MFA in Sculpture (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and a PhD in Cultural Studies (Goldsmiths, University of London). She is the Adjunct Curator at Griffin Art Projects, and is a contributor to the Asia Collections outside Asia: Questioning Artefacts, Cultures and Identities in the Museum (2020) publication edited by Iside Carbone and Helen Wang, to Alison Hulme (ed.) book, The Changing Landscape of China’s Consumerism (2014) and to John Jung’s book, Sweet and Sour: Life in Chinese Family Restaurant (2010). Her work is in museum and corporate collections such as the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Global Affairs Canada (Embassy of Canada in London), Hydro-Québec Art Collection, La Caisse de dépôt du Québec, Collection of the Royal Bank of Canada, TD Group, Microsoft Art Collection, and in private collections in Canada, United States, and United Kingdom. She is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau.

https://www.karentam.ca/

The artist and Plein sud:

Karen Tam presented the exhibition Les enfants des brigands at Plein sud from September 3 to October 22, 2022. In spring 2025, Plein sud éditions, in co-publication with EXPRESSION, Centre d’exposition de Saint-Hyacinthe, will publish the monograph Karen Tam. SHEEN-wah-ZREE.

Important information:

• The rules of the fundraising draw and the licenses are available for download here;
• Once you have placed your order, you will automatically receive a confirmation. In the following business days, a member of our team will email you a delivery note indicating the ticket numbers that have been assigned to you (this is a systematic process; it is not possible to choose a number);
• Finally, save the date of December 4, 2025, to join us for the draw and perhaps walk away with the artwork you entered in the fundraising draw.