Artist Talk with Yan Wen Chang

Artist Talk with Yan Wen Chang

Thursday, 9 October, 7:00 p.m. | Free

We invite you to join us for an Artist Talk by Yan Wen Chang. Chang is one of the featured artists in the group exhibition Auto-Biography: Vehicles of identity, community and globalization. This exhibition considers a wide-range of social, economic and inter-cultural distillations of identity in a globalized society. The vehicle is held as a common link between each artist, though it is used in very different ways. In this talk, Chang will situate her work within her larger artistic practice and will share personal links and connections that intersect with these overarching themes.

About the Artist

Yan Wen Chang (b. 1993) received her MFA from the University of Guelph in 2022, and her BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University in 2015. 

Chang explores the complex, often contradictory realities of immigration, translocation, and psychological duality. She immigrated alone from Malaysia to Toronto at age 17—a formative experience that continues to shape her practice. Chang’s paintings and drawings stem from the emotional, political, and cultural landscape of the immigrant condition, reflecting a constant tension between hope and despair, pride and disillusionment, resilience and fragility. These oppositions are foundational to her practice.

Chang’s recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Gillian, Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto (2025); Jillian, Hawkins Headquarters, Atlanta (2025); Nympho, A.D. NYC, New York (2024) and Auto Dealer Dream: Yan Wen Chang and Andrew Harding, Weatherproof, Chicago (2024). Chang currently lives and works in Guelph, Ontario, and is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto.

Artist Talks are sponsored by Sorbara Law.

            

Image: Yan Wen Chang, Portrait of Self in Passenger Seat No. 110, 2021, oil on canvas, 40 x 46 inches. Work courtesy of Susan Hobbs Gallery.