Angela Teng

Works that look like a cross between pot holders and abstract paintings undermine canons of Western art.

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Angela Teng’s exhibition Up a Lemon Tree covers a seven-year span and traces the development and maturation of a young Vancouver artist. Curated by Katherine Dennis, it’s on view at the Art Gallery at Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam until Nov. 3. Beginning with works that focus on process, labour, gender and craft, the exhibition culminates with fully resolved and resonant paintings that invite multiple readings.

Prior to embarking on her art career, Teng raced mountain bikes professionally in Whistler, B.C. Since receiving her BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2011, she has exhibited her work nationally and internationally and was twice a finalist in the RBC Canadian Painting Competition. Her work was included in Vancouver Special: Ambivalent Pleasures at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2017.

Much has been made of Teng’s process, which involves extruding long, thin strands of acrylic paint. Once dry, these strands possess the flexibility and appearance of hobby craft lacing. Teng painstakingly crochets these strands into colorful if rigid mats that look like a cross between slightly eccentric pot holders and abstract paintings. 

The pieces are fixed to aluminum supports, rendering them both object and image. In some cases, the process overtakes the result, lending a sort of inertia that frustrates efforts to read the work as painting. And perhaps that’s the point, as these quirky objects make strong claims to undermine canons of Western art that privilege male artists and painting over domestic handcrafts generally performed by women.

Playful titles soften the theoretical thrust, and several works, for example, Love Buzz, 2015, incorporate subtle passages of colour paired with strong, geometric figures to produce intricate visual effects. With I’m not happy and I’m not sad, 2019, one of the most recent works in the show, Teng expands her process further, crocheting and assembling irregular patches into a larger format. The larger scale and brash colours create a striking work, which holds its own as both an intriguing object and a painting.

In another development, Teng turns her attention to the support on which the painting sits. Using both cotton and linen, traditional canvas materials, she crochets lengths of fabric and secures them to standard painting stretchers. Holes in the crocheted fabric are large enough for her to push paint through from the back of the work. 

Varying the paint’s viscosity and the pressure applied, Teng produces a surprising range of marks. In some, thick ropes of paint protrude through and collapse, forming generous loops, while in others, only small dots and smudges emerge. The different marks generate a richly textured surface, which is enhanced by colour modulations and decorative or figurative imagery. 

While some pieces, such as the eponymous Up a Lemon Tree, feature unpainted borders, the strongest works counter the decorative effect by extending the image right to the edge. In Blue Through Pink, 2016, the eye struggles to discern a figure or pattern in the random marks, opening the work to more sustained looking and a greater range of possible references.

A third group consists of canvases smeared with thick slabs of paint, which leave irregular edges at top and bottom. Honey Trap and I’m a Swede are tall verticals, while On Pink consists of four small squares organized into a larger square. The simplicity of the format is complicated by areas of brightly coloured flocking, which cast dazzling afterimages onto the painted portion of each panel.

These works are visceral and satisfying not only for their visual pyrotechnics, but also for their capacity to raise issues of gender, class and power. Flocking is most often found on low-budget items such as wallpaper, home décor or toys, while oil paint epitomizes high art materials and concerns. Balancing opposites, Teng harnesses her unconventional processes and materials to fully integrate her conceptual concerns into aesthetically compelling works. ■ 

Angela Teng: Up a Lemon Tree is on view at the Art Gallery of Evergreen Cultural Centre in Coquitlam, B.C., from Sept. 14 to Nov. 3, 2019.

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Art Gallery Evergreen

Art Gallery at Evergreen

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