First Flight

Work on Paper

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Medcan Art Collection

Name/Title

First Flight

Entry/Object ID

2008.06.01

Description

Ed Pien (b. 1958, Taipei City, Taiwan) is a Toronto-based artist, known for his drawings, prints, and large-scale installations that are inspired by both Eastern and Western art practices and mythologies. For the artist, the process is a bodily response. Knowing what to do requires using his hands. It is a negotiation of "real-time" decisions that lead to both beauty, mishaps, and learning opportunities. For First Flight (2008), the artist combines the traditional medium of Japanese shoji paper with a modern tool of the utility knife. As he draws with the knife on the fragile material, the cut sections form the image of a dense forest where shadowy figures curiously move throughout the interweave of trees and vines. The imagery seems primordial. However, it is unclear whether this is an allusion to the Garden of Eden or a post-apocalyptic future. Pien’s art is frequently concerned with environmental trauma and humanity’s ancient and symbiotic relationship with nature. https://www.edpien.com/

Artwork Details

Medium

ink on shoji paper

Made/Created

Artist

Pien, Ed

Date made

2008

Dimensions

Height

149.8 cm

Width

97.8 cm