Karen Tam's Chinatown Studio
Karen Tam, "Flying Cormorant Studio (for Lee Nam)," 2014-2017
multimedia installation with paintings by Lui Luk Chun, Tam Yuen Yin Law, Huang Junbi, Gao Jianfu, Qi Baishi and Emily Carr, dimensions variable (installation view)
A Chinese artist who befriended Emily Carr in the early 1930s is the focus of a Victoria exhibition by Montreal’s Karen Tam. Little is known about Lee Nam, apart from several references to him in Carr’s writing.
Tam, best known for recreating Chinese restaurants in galleries across Canada as a way of recovering lost histories about migrants, spent a month in Victoria searching for information about Nam. Her multimedia installation, With wings like clouds hung from the sky, on view at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria until Sept. 4, re-imagines what his Chinatown studio might have looked like. It’s equipped with brushes and inks for traditional painting as well as work by various artists, including Montreal-based Lui Luk Chun and Tam’s mother, Yuen Yin Law.
Karen Tam, "Flying Cormorant Studio (for Lee Nam)," 2014-2017
multimedia installation with paintings by Lui Luk Chun, Tam Yuen Yin Law, Huang Junbi, Gao Jianfu, Qi Baishi and Emily Carr, dimensions variable (detail of installation)
Ultimately, Nam remains a shadowy figure. Tam was unable to find any photos of him, though she did a series of watercolours based on period photographs of immigrants with the same name. She is not even sure the name Carr recorded is correct – many early immigrants were “paper sons” who bought travel documents from other people.
At the entrance to the show, Tam has posted an unsigned image of some chickens, thought to have been painted by either Nam or Carr. “It’s the closest physical evidence we have of him,” she says.
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Karen Tam with Lui Luk Chun, Tam Yuen Yin Law and AGGV visitors, exhibition view of (hanging piece) “Like rain drops rolling down new paint,” 2017
participatory installation, ink on "xuan" paper, dimensions variable
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Karen Tam with Lui Luk Chun, Tam Yuen Yin Law and AGGV visitors, exhibition view (front) of “Like rain drops rolling down new paint,” 2017
participatory installation, ink on "xuan" paper, dimensions variable (detail)
Carr, in The House of All Sorts, a 1944 book that recounts her days as a landlady, wrote about meeting Nam while organizing a show in her home. “A young Chinese came to my door carrying a roll of painting. He had heard about the exhibition, had come to show his work to me – beautiful watercolours done in Oriental style. He was very anxious to carry his work further.”
Carr invited him to show his work, and the two became friends. Carr mentions Nam in passing several times in her writing, but there’s no explanation of what happened to him, says Tam. He may have returned to China. Or perhaps the two simply lost touch.
Carr, who died in 1945, would have been over 60 by this time, while Nam, who worked as a bookkeeper, was likely much younger. Carr noted that Nam, whose studio was on Cormorant Street, wanted to take art lessons in the Western style. Carr wanted to learn Chinese techniques.
Interestingly, Nam’s appearance in Carr’s writing occurs around the same time she began making loose sketches with paint thinned by gasoline. These striking works seem to replicate formulas outlined in a Qing dynasty manual of Chinese landscape painting.
Before they lost touch, Carr and Lam exchanged paintings. Tam, who has a doctorate from Goldsmiths at the University of London, says she like to think an unknown Carr painting exists somewhere in China.
The show, curated by Haema Sivanesan, builds on Tam's 2014 installation, Flying Cormorant Studio, created as part of a group show, Convoluted Beauty: In the Company of Emily Carr, at the Mendel Gallery in Saskatoon.
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria
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