Millie Chen
{{Short description|Taiwanese-born Canadian artist}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Millie Chen
| image =
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| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1962}}
| birth_place = Taipei, Taiwan
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| nationality = Canadian
| field = Interdisciplinary Arts
| education = BFA, MFA
| alma_mater = Royal Conservatory of Music, York University, Concordia University
| awards = Chalmers Fellowship
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Millie Chen (born 1962) is a Taiwanese-born Canadian artist, educator, and writer. Based in Buffalo, New York, Chen is a professor in the Department of Art at the University at Buffalo.{{cite web |title=Faculty & Staff |url=http://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/art/faculty/directory.host.html/content/shared/arts-sciences/art/faculty-staff/faculty-profiles/chen-millie.html |website=UB Department of Art|date=2012-11-29 }}
Early life and education
She was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and raised in Toronto, Ontario. Chen received an MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University in 1994 and her BFA Honours from York University in 1986. She studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music.{{cite web |title=Artists |url=https://www.burchfieldpenney.org/artists/artist:millie-chen/ |website=Burchfield Penney Art Center}}
Career
Chen's installations, videos, and interventions have been exhibited across Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, France, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Japan and China. Her work is often intended as a sensorial experience that questions the perceptual and ideological assumptions of the audience.{{cite web|url=https://www.albrightknox.org/art/exhibitions/millie-chen-tour|title=Statement|website=Millie Chen}}
Along with having work in the public collection of the Canada Council Art Bank, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and Roswell Park's Art Collection, Chen has produced a number of major permanent public art commissions. The Canadian Pacific Railway commissioned a mural in 1998 to commemorate the historic West Toronto Junction Engine House.{{cite web |title=Public Commissions |url=http://www.milliechen.com/publiccom.html |website=Millie Chen}} In 2001 the City of Toronto commissioned Timetrack in Dempsey Park, and the following year commissioned Third Garden at the site of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital. Both sculptural public art installations were made in collaboration with artist Warren Quigley. The duo had collaborated previously on Gateway in 1997, a pair of allegorical entrances at the intersection of Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street West that identify Toronto’s Chinatown, a work commissioned by the City of Toronto, Toronto Transit Commission, and Toronto Chinatown Development Association. {{cite web |title=Public Commissions |url=http://warrenquigley.com/public_commisions.html |website=Warren Quigley}}
The site-specific Chinoiserie Room was commissioned by the Gladstone Hotel in 2005. Chinoiserie refers to a style of decorative art based on European imitation of Asian motifs. Chen makes use of this style ironically, poking fun at decorative appropriation and exoticism. The room's effect relies on wallpaper design, which contrasts Victorian imagery with contemporary global references.{{cite web |title=Chinoiserie Room |url=http://www.gladstonehotel.com/spaces/417-chinoiserie-room/ |website=Gladstone Hotel}}
Among her numerous awards and grants is a Chalmers Fellowship through the Ontario Arts Council to produce Demon Girl Duet, a dual-screen video installation depicting two river journeys. One follows the Yangtze in China, while another follows the Niagara River, which spans a 35-mile stretch of the border between Canada and the United States. The piece was exhibited in the Canada Pavilion at Shanghai Expo 2010.{{cite web |title=Resume |url=http://www.milliechen.com/resume.html |website=Millie Chen}}
As the University of Colorado Art Museum's 2018 Artist-in-Residence, Chen produced the installation entitled Millie Chen: Four Recollections as well as egg MUSEUM, in which egg tempera studies of photographic details are juxtaposed with objects from the Museum's collection.{{Cite news|url=https://www.colorado.edu/cuartmuseum/exhibitions/millie-chen-four-recollections|title=Millie Chen: Four Recollections|date=2017-07-17|work=Art Museum|access-date=2018-11-11|language=en}} Her concurrent project, Silk Road Singbook--which re-traces a Eurasian trading routes--also focuses on narratives of cultural and generational relationships.{{Cite news|url=https://www.annakaplancontemporary.art/artists/millie-chen/|title=Millie Chen · Anna Kaplan Contemporary|work=Anna Kaplan Contemporary|access-date=2018-11-11|language=en-US}}
Chen is represented by Anna Kaplan Contemporary.{{cite web |title=Represented Artists |url=https://www.annakaplancontemporary.art/artists/millie-chen/ |website=Anna Kaplan Contemporary}}
Solo exhibitions
- Millie Chen: Miseries & Vengeance Wallpapers at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, October 4, 2013 – November 16, 2014{{cite web |last1=Dabkowski |first1=Colin |title=Millie Chen urges us to wake up to human atrocities |url=https://buffalonews.com/2014/02/19/millie-chen-urges-us-to-wake-up-to-human-atrocities/ |website=The Buffalo News|date=2014-02-19 }}
- Millie Chen: Tour at Albright-Knox Art Gallery, January 30 – May 18, 2014{{cite web |title=Exhibitions |url=https://www.albrightknox.org/art/exhibitions/millie-chen-tour |website=Albright-Knox Art Gallery}}
- Millie Chen: stain at BT&C Gallery, February 5 – March 27, 2015{{cite web |last1=Foran |first1=Jack |title=Millie Chen at BT&C Gallery |url=http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/03172015/millie-chen-btc-gallery |website=The Public|date=2015-03-17 }}
- Millie Chen: Tour at Vtape, September 11 – October 15, 2015{{cite web |title=Millie Chen: Tour |url=http://www.vtape.org/event/millie-chen-tour |website=Vtape}}
- Millie Chen: Prototypes 1970s at BT&C Gallery, November 3 – December 17, 2016{{cite web |last1=Adams |first1=Bruce |title=Millie Chen at BT&C Gallery |url=http://www.dailypublic.com/articles/11292016/millie-chen-btc-gallery |website=The Public|date=2016-11-29 }}
- Millie Chen: Four Recollections at CU Art Museum, February 1 – July 21, 2018{{cite web |last1=Boyd |first1=Kealey |title=Drawing on Memories of Violence and Displacement |url=https://hyperallergic.com/429348/drawing-on-memories-of-violence-and-displacement/ |website=Hyperallergic|date=2018-03-02 }}
- Millie Chen: Matter at Anna Kaplan Contemporary, February 21 – April 5, 2019 {{cite web |title=MILLIE CHEN: MATTER |url=https://www.annakaplancontemporary.art/exhibitions/millie-chen-matter/ |website=Anna Kaplan Contemporary |accessdate=21 February 2019}}
References
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Category:Taiwanese emigrants to Canada
Category:Canadian women artists
Category:University at Buffalo faculty
Category:Canadian expatriate academics in the United States
Category:The Royal Conservatory of Music alumni