TIAN Contemporain is pleased to present A Familiar Distance - a group exhibition featuring the works of Jessica Wee (Montreal), Phuong Nguyen (Toronto), and Hidenori Ishii (NY). Blending techniques, aesthetics, and materials of distinct cultural traditions, the exhibition showcases three diasporic artists reimagining familiar objects, motifs, and materials in novel hybrid contexts, reframing identity, artistry, and representation through various assemblages.

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Jessica Wee’s fantastical, technicolor oil paintings reflect complex cultural composites, engaging with universal themes of inquiry, imagination, and connection. In her still-life compositions, everyday objects and human subjects coexist with divine and mythological creatures, blurring the boundaries between past and present, dream and reality, history and myth in the diasporic imagination. Phuong Nguyen’s intricately composed object portraits interrogate the historical legacy of cultural fetishism in the European art canon, personifying porcelain Chinoiserie vases and transforming them to challenge notions of subjecthood. As such, her works critically engage with the violence and limitations of representation through objectification. Combining personal narrative, socio-political context, and ecological and technological inquiry, Hidenori Ishii’s vividly complex sculptures explore transformation and resilience. Informed by his lifelong interest in nature and his fascination with landfills, environmental degradation, nuclear disasters, and advances in genomic agriculture, his work envisions a moment where the organic and synthetic merge, reflecting the precarious and entangled nature of cultural identity. Together, these works offer a nuanced and diverse array of approaches to negotiating identity through artistic practice, showcasing the intersection of interrogations concerning past tradition, present lived experience, and the possibility of alternate futures.

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ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

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Jessica Wee (b. 1988, New Jersey) is a Korean American Canadian artist based in Montreal. She earned her BFA in Studio Art at Concordia University, Montreal (2011), where she is currently an MFA candidate. She also has completed a Diploma in Classical Realist oil painting at Angel Academy, Florence (2017). She has held solo exhibitions at Steve Turner Gallery, L.A. (2023); Latitude Gallery, New York (2022); Spring Break, New York (2022), and the Maison de la Culture NDG, Montreal (2024). In 2023, she participated in the Vermont Studio Center Residency program. Her work has been featured by Artforum, Artnet, Hyperallergic, and La Presse. Between 2019 and 2021 she acted as the head assistant painter for contemporary artist Angel Otero in New York. She currently works and lives in Montreal.

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Phuong Nguyen holds a BFA from OCAD University (2014). Working in representational oil painting and experimental weaving, she explores themes of Ornamentalism and the relationship between exoticism and violence by referencing the aesthetics and the history of Chinoiserie and South East Asian/Vietnamese femininity. Recent exhibitions include "Cruel to be Kind" at Stewart Hall Art Gallery (2023), "The Wind Returns To The Soil" at TAP Art Space (2023) and “Where We Left Off” at Olga Korper Gallery (2024). She currently works and lives in Toronto.

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Hidenori Ishii (b. 1978, Japan) is a painter based in Long Island City, New York. He is a graduate of the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Joan Mitchell MFA Fellowship Nominee. His work investigates the paradoxical dichotomy of civilization and nature through the interdependence which lies in between. Specifically, his work approaches the social and environmental landscape through a fusion of art historical connections, personal narratives, and socio-political subject matter. He has exhibited previously at Erin Cluley Gallery (Dallas), LES Printshop (New York), and Park Place Gallery (Brooklyn). His public and private collections include: Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, The JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, Microsoft Art Collection, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Tammy Cotton Hartnett, and others.