High Life

46 品 “During this time, I met a lot of artists, photographers, writers and dancers. And then I asked myself, why can’t I be that?” she recalls. In the end, it was while working for a publishing company back in Macau that Chan inadvertently stumbled upon her big break. “I had a notebook that I used to draw in,” she says. “One day my boss saw my drawings, thought they were really good and introduced me to some curators. It was from there that I enrolled in an art school in New York.” Chan’s paintings can be summed up as a nostalgic narrative of her past struggles and emotional childhood. Likewise, they address some uncomfortable truths about the society we live in, with the artist using her medium to fight for equality and eradicate sexism. “I find it weird that it is acceptable for men to have their desires while women are judged if they express theirs,” she observes. “That’s why art, for me, is more than a narrative. I don’t give answers. I ask questions.”