Romance of the Subtropics

Subtropical Romance” is an exhibition of new paintings exploring Crystal W. M. Chan’s personal relationship to the theme of travel and places turned into desires, of climates and atmospheres felt and remembered. These scenes evoke places, people and plants on the move. Like the tropics, they circulate in imaginations both personal and collective.  

“There is a romance to the tropics. A story tourists tell others about their travels on the return home. They tell of distant beaches, exotic fruit and palm trees. These stories turn into fantasies and fictions we tell ourselves about the good life,” says Crystal. “Growing up in Macau, I never thought of it as part of that story, but now an endless stream of tourists come to town to escape from familiar things and find paradise here in an unfamiliar place.” 

Born and raised in Macau, Crystal experienced the city’s transition from Portuguese to Chinese rule and she has lived in various places herself. This cultural shift and change of identity led her to explore questions of identity and representation, the complexity of identity, as well as the prejudices and expectations it faces in society. 

Through her artwork, familiar yet blurred elements address the feelings of displacement and estrangement, provoking consideration of the relationship between humans and their environments. 

Affect and atmosphere are two recurrent elements in Crystal’s artwork.  In her paintings, isolated figures and desolate landscapes are drawn with expressive lines and brushstrokes. In her sound installations, field recordings from nature and urban environments are combined with improvised music played on both traditional and non-traditional instruments to create an otherworldly setting.

Crystal has studied and worked in Taiwan, Greece, and New York, earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York and her Master of Fine Arts degree at Purchase College, State University of New York.

“Most of the paintings were done this year, when I was pregnant. I think that influenced me, it changed my way of thinking, it changed my way of seeing the world,” Crystal comments, describing her intention to weave a personal narrative into her artwork: “I think in the past my paintings were darker, but this time it’s different, I’m at a different stage in my life. When I was alone, when I was a student or when I was going through all the difficulties of living alone in New York, that influenced me and my art. But now I’m married, I have my daughter, I’m a happier person.”