Recent Workss

At Winchester Galleries Modern 758 Humboldt

August 14 - 31, 2010

Opening:
Saturday, August 14, 2010   2 pm – 4 pm

Les Chan is a fabric artist known for humorous, complexly-designed, well-crafted and small-scale needlepoint.  He is also a goodwill ambassador to Chinatown, an impresario for his legendary Chinese New Year's Dinners (attended by several hundred guests each year) and an aficionado of food and indeed of life skills and attitude.  He is an inspiration to many.

When Les was 13, two brain tumours left him paralyzed on the left side of his body.  Soon after that seismic change in circumstance, 'He watched his Aunt Ruth stitch her needle work and was fascinated by the process.  After a few years, the commercial kits bored the young man and he set off on his own imaginative venture to have some fun.  He began to design outlandish patterns.' (Thelma Fayle: 'A Resilient Man,' Senior Living, June 2009)

'When Les needed more socializing in his young life, he discovered cooking.  It was fun and he could share it. ... Within a few years, (he) was a cooking instructor.' (Ibid.)  Noted venues for his sought-after classes have included Kitchen Etiquette and Camosun College.  In 1997 he authored Don't Stir Fry in the Nude which addresses Cantonese and Szechuan cuisine.

By the late 1980s Les's artwork was integrating images with witty puns.  Describing the technique, Sylvia Weinstock wrote: '... pun-laden titles pop in to his mind first.  Moving quickly from conception into production, he quickly sketches an image that embodies the play on words onto a piece of broadcloth, without any intermediary drawings.  Propping the embroidery hoop between his right knee and chest, Les painstakingly stitches the image.  An average piece takes more than 200 hours to complete.' (Boulevard Magazine, Oct/Nov 1997)

A 1996 series is informed by dish puns.  '"In Dish Be Leaf," "Child Dish" (a slingshot, baseball bat and rattle are the utensils), "Dis Lexic" (silverware is reversed in a place setting) and "Dishcotheque" (well-dressed cutlery cuts up on a dance floor beneath a mirrored ball).' (Ibid.)  Chan's Tea Series - 1997 - features such titles as 'Tea and Trumpets,' 'Royal Tea,' 'E-Tea' and 'Tea and Symphony.'  Since that date his work eludes the 'series' format but explores many different phenomena, samplings of which astound the viewer of this current show.

The exhibition is the first one of Les Chan's work at Winchester Galleries and inaugurates Winchester Galleries Modern and its location at 758 Humboldt Street (at the Astoria condominium tower between Douglas and Blanchard.