VIU alumnus’s ceramics career firing up

VIU graduate Brendan Tang is enjoying a hot ceramics career. Recently named "Emerging artist" by Ceramics Monthly, Tang was one of the presenters at October’s 1000 Miles Apart, a Western Canadian ceramics conference, shortly after returning from a three month artist’s residency at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana.

Tang’s series "Manga Ormolu" explores the modern realities of a world in which cultures are constantly being mixed and reinvented. "I’m playing with ideas of cultural appropriation and hybridization," said Tang, who was born to an East Indian mother and Chinese father.

"My parents emigrated from Trinidad to Dublin, Ireland, where I was born before coming to Canada," he said. "I’ve felt something akin to hybridization."

"My ideas and thoughts of culture have started to change a bit. Earlier in my life, I thought of culture as static, or if it moved, it moved at a glacier’s pace. Today I think of culture as a much more fluid, dynamic thing."

Playing with reconfiguration, Tang mixes traditional Chinese Ming dynasty vessels with "techno-Pop Art". He draws inspiration from the 18th century, when French merchants were importing ceramics from the East and adding gold detailing so that the pieces would be more in step with rococo, the French fashion of the day.

Instead of gold, Tang adds robotic elements inspired by plastic toys and Japanese comics, creating playful pieces that would feel at home in a futuristic animated film. In fact, at a show in LA, Tang sold a piece to someone who works at Pixar, the animation studio behind Wall-E and Cars.

The internet also plays an important role in connecting Tang with his audience. "Because of the time we live in, I can have a website that allows me to present my work to the world," he said. "Collectors are confident viewing work online."

Being a ceramics artist isn’t the easiest road to choose – in the art world, painting and photography usually take top billing. "Ceramics are low in the visual arts world," he said. "It’s kind of puzzling."

As well as being a guest lecturer at several institutions, including VIU and the Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Tang taught ceramics for the last two years at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops where he now resides.

His advice for new art students? Keep at it. Though he shies away from talking about the "business" of art, Tang said the reality of the field is that you have to be concerned with marketing and getting your work out there.

"It’s a real juggling act. In the beginning, I had whimsical notions that I would just make my work and someone would snap me up, but like anything that’s risky or out of the norm, it becomes an issue of endurance," he said.

And his determination is paying off: his work has been featured in publications such as Ceramics Monthly, Hi-Fructose, and FUSE. Up next are shows in Toronto until November, a piece in Corning in New York, a January show in Vancouver, a show at the Kamloops Art Gallery and a show in Ottawa in April.

"I’ve had lots of times of self-doubt but I never have any doubt about my work. I stand by it. I never think I’m giving up or selling out."

Visit Brendan Tang online at BrendanTang.com. For more information on the Visual Arts program visit viu.ca or contact the advising department at 250-740-6410.