Audrey Chan

Audrey Chan, The Care We Create, painted mural and vinyl, façade of the Los Angeles offices of the ACLU of Southern California (1313 W. 8th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017), 2020. Fabrication by the Los Angeles Art Collective and Wilson Cetina Group. Photo by Elon Schoenholz

Audrey Chan is a celebrated artist, illustrator, and writer based in Los Angeles, California. Her research-based projects use drawing, painting, public art, and video to challenge dominant historical narratives through allegories of power, place, and identity. Audrey’s many professional accomplishments include being awarded fellowships with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum, California Arts Council, and California Community Foundation, as well as serving as an artist-in-residence for several esteemed organizations and exhibiting her work at a number of prestigious institutions around the world. She received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BA with Honors from Swarthmore College.

Hi Audrey! Tell us about yourself, how did you get to where you are today? When did you first become interested in art and design? 

I am an LA-based artist, illustrator, and writer. I’m from Oak Park, Illinois, where I grew up drawing and painting, reading the Sunday funnies in the Chicago Tribune, visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, taking classes at SAIC’s Early College Program on the weekends, and obsessing over graphic novels and zines at Quimby’s Bookstore. My art and politics merged during my studies at Swarthmore College and CalArts, where I started to develop my approach to narrative and storytelling. Ultimately, my love of drawing combined with my desire to share community stories and contribute to social justice movement building led to my current career as a public artist.

Artist Audrey Chan, Photo by Jason Pierre

How would you describe your aesthetic and how has it changed over time?

Since childhood, I’ve related most to the aesthetics of comics, graphic novels, and hand-painted cel animation. Whether working digitally or analog (e.g. painting in gouache), my current artwork usually involves figures rendered with flat color and hand-drawn black outlines. When I’m developing large scale public artworks, I translate the drawings into vector based graphics so that they’re scalable but can still convey the same intimacy of a hand-drawn sketch. I’ve also loved designing illustrated kites, park banners, vocabulary cards, and newspaper comics–forms that are meant to be circulated and seen in everyday life.

Audrey Chan, 重溫舊夢 (to relive old dreams), newspaper, 2021. Collection of the USC Pacific Asia Museum.

Much of your work is research-based and challenges dominant historical narratives. Can you share more about the themes you explore through your work and your approach to art? 

When I was developing my approach to allegory, I wanted to challenge the perceived universality of narratives and symbols from the Western canon and the myth of white supremacy. My work is rooted in research, which often looks like conversations with community culture bearers and exploring archives to shine a light on historically marginalized stories. In my project “Will Power Allegory” for the Little Tokyo/Arts District Station in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to work alongside Little Tokyo community, Skid Row activists, artists facing eviction, Bronzeville historians, and a revered Gabrieleno/Tongva tribal elder to develop a layered artwork that reflected the values and stories they wanted to carry forward into the future. 

Audrey Chan, Will Power Allegory, details, digital renderings of porcelain enamel steel panels, Little Tokyo/Arts District Station, 2022. Commissioned by LA Metro.

You’ve created several prominent public art pieces, including The Care We Create mural on the facade of the Los Angeles office of the ACLU of Southern California, and, as you mentioned, the art for the new Little Tokyo/ Arts District metro station in Los Angeles. What are your thoughts on the power and importance of public art? 

Public art is accessible and becomes part of the everyday life of a neighborhood. Drawing and painting on walls is the oldest form of human expression; it’s core to how we have communicated with each other through the ages. Muralism has been so important for communities of color—especially during the Chicano Art Movement—to be able to tell their stories within their communities at a time when they were excluded from institutional museum spaces. I make my work out of a deep respect for the legacy of generations of public art in Los Angeles. The city itself is the people’s museum. 

Audrey Chan, Love Is What This Struggle’s About!, vinyl mesh banner, Stevenson Park, Carson, California, 2022. Commissioned by CSUDH Praxis. Photo by Elon Schoenholz. 

What is your creative process like and how do you approach creative collaboration with your clients and other artists? 

I have been lucky to work with collaborators who share a vision for a more just world that is made possible through movement building and uplifting community needs for dignity, inclusivity, sharing resources, and making change by challenging unjust structures and practices. That alignment is a crucial starting point. From there, my process is quite porous and iterative, so there are rounds of proposals, sketches, and edits informed by constant discussion. I find that I prefer that level of holistic collaboration where we can build capacity across sectors by merging art and advocacy. 

Audrey Chan and jason chu, An American Vocabulary: Words to Action, bilingual vocabulary flash card, 2022. The set of 20 AANHPI multilingual vocabulary flash cards were created in collaboration with the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum and Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California through the Artists at Work initiative.

Where do you find inspiration? 

I find inspiration in the collective care work of community organizers. I look to them for hope and direction when the state of our society feels overwhelming and despiriting. I am inspired every day by raising two amazing human beings with my writer husband, Jason Pierre. We often talk about our passion and drive as children of immigrants—from China, Taiwan, and Jamaica—who have chosen a creative path. Our kids are so expressive and we learn so much through learning about the world through their eyes. 

What advice would you give to artists just starting out? 

I got a helpful piece of wisdom from a former art professor who said that it’s important to be able to separate your practice from your career. While an art career is made of periods of unpredictable highs and lows, your practice needs to be your constant throughline. Your practice is the collection of ideas and questions and processes that you return to again and again throughout your life as an artist, the work that you do whether or not anyone is looking. I’ve also found it important to learn to manage self-doubt by channeling the interrogation into the work. It has been more generative for me to work from a place of feeling unsure of where to begin and making the most of my limitations.

What are you working on now and what’s up next for you?

I just started a year-long fellowship through the California Creative Corps and 18th Street Arts Center. I’ll be collaborating with AAPI FORCE-EF (AAPIs for Civic Empowerment Education Fund) on a comic book project about pioneering AAPI community organizers and activists who have worked to fight against corporate evil-doers. The comic book will be translated into Chinese, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Punjabi, Samoan, Tagalog, and Vietnamese so that it can serve as a political education tool to build civic engagement in working class AAPI communities across California.

Audrey Chan, Protect Public Lands, ink on Japanese mulberry paper and bamboo, 2022. Rokkaku kite fabricated by Stevie Choi. Commissioned for Clockshop’s 2nd Annual Community and Unity People’s Kite Festival. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber.

Thank you for sharing with us Audrey! To view more of Audrey’s work, visit her website and follow her on Instagram.

Audrey was nominated by Noun Project. All art courtesy of Audrey Chan.