Curtis Chan was born in Hong Kong and currently lives in London. He received his Master’s Degree in Fine Arts Painting from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, in 2022.
The artist creates idealistic scenes that reflect his psychological state revolving around the idealised past and present desires. His heart perpetually holds a nostalgic sentiment for the past, and this constant yearning gives the bygone time a manufacturing appeal and interweaves an intimate narrative of the self. Chan’s work juxtaposes remembered past and present needs, forming an intimate space with a sense of romanticisation and longing. His paintings provide an autobiographical and intuitive depiction of the inner space hidden between memory and reverie.
Influenced by the writing of David Lowenthal, “Heightening certain events in recall, we then reinterpret them in the light of subsequent experience and present need” (Lowenthal,1985). Chan’s work deals with utopian ideals grounding upon the attractiveness of the past and a sense of longing.
Old photos and memories served as a basis for his work, using acrylic and watercolour to render surfaces interweaving around decoratively fragmented images and ethereal layers. Vibrant colours and gentle brushstrokes create an illusory and dreamlike soliloquy. The artist uses garden imagery as a metaphor for paradise and an ideal spirit. These scenes are often in an unreal setting, employing a direct, intuitive process to merge traces of the past with direct narration to create psychological solace paintings.