About the Artist
Kev Liang is an emerging multidisciplinary artist based in Edmonton, Treaty 6 territory. He obtained his BFA in Printmaking and Intermedia from the University of Alberta in 2021 and has been developing his artistic practice ever since, whilst also assisting the arts and culture community of Edmonton. Kev has exhibited at SNAP Gallery, Latitude 53, Art Museum at the University of Toronto for the 2021 BMO 1st! Art award, and more, with an upcoming new solo exhibition at Calgary’s The New Gallery in 2024. He tackles his homo/queer, diasporic 2nd-gen Chinese-Canadian identity and its existential anxieties of lineage and prosperity within the anthropocene. Kev was a Production Assistant for The Works International Visual Arts Society, a Gallery Associate for dc3 Art Projects, and a mentee/intern for Latitude 53. He is currently interested and involved in community-based artistic projects concerning Edmonton’s Chinatown and will continue to seek opportunities to contribute towards our own community as well as expand artistically elsewhere.
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Ethnic Origins
East Asian
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Languages
Cantonese, English
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My Disciplines
Media Arts, Multidisciplinary, Visual Arts
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Artist Statement
Using lens-based processes, I hope to create narratives in the form of print-media and film, put into a contextual space that all encapsulates my feelings and grasp of my homo/queer, diasporic, 2nd-generation Chinese-Canadian identity. I’ve been interested in tackling existential anxieties of feeling minuscule, insignificant, and lonely. These feelings are heightened and fuelled by being present within modular and systematic urban spaces and having an anthropocentric outlook on contemporary life. Drifting through fast-paced urban time and space after growing up in a very secluded rural environment, I attempt to dissect the different cultural and philosophical aspects of my gay, 2nd-gen Chinese-Canadian identity as a means to try and understand why I have these existential fears. I hope to showcase my perspective and what I am feeling, as well as what I am doing in the present as a way of coping. By taking into consideration the traditional, cultural, and philosophical Chinese expectation of continuing your blood lineage and my inability to do so as a queer body, as well as the idea of Chinese-Canadian immigrants relying on labor and prosperity as a means of survival and presence, I ask myself and others: How much is at stake in terms of ensuring a long term presence or settled lineage for queer and diasporic identities like myself? How can I, or will I ever, find my own sense of kinship or family? Where do individuals like myself lie within an incredibly labor and wealth-oriented society?