Janice Wu

b. in Vancouver, BC, 1988. lives and works in Vancouver, BC.
CV

Janice's work addresses the ways in which meaning and value are placed upon things in the material realm. She is interested in the subtle shifts in perception and the quiet transformations that can take place through the act of looking. Working in the tradition of watercolour, her drawings reveal the intimate process of careful observation. Time and contemplation are devoted to the most ordinary of subjects: fragments, thrown away remnants, and everyday detritus from our daily existence. When the quotidian becomes strange and the ‘inanimate’ mundane unfamiliar, conventional ideas around categorization are challenged and poetic possibilities arise.

Past Exhibitions at MRG
uncommonplace | Janice Wu | Aimée Henny Brown | Danielle Krysa (October 6-21, 2017)

Back Gallery Project (now Mónica Reyes Gallery) is excited to present the work of three female artists who draw out introspection, nostalgia, and humor from the ordinary and the everyday. By reworking and reinterpreting found materials and images, each artist sheds new light on the world around them. Whether creating immaculate watercolors, dystopian collages, or cleverly shrewd works on paper, each artist transforms the common into the uncommon.

Wu returns to BGP with new work that imbues ordinary objects with a new presence. Her intricate renderings of old postcards, pencils and bits of receipts and wrappers revel in the mundane. With a deft hand, Wu creates painstakingly precise watercolor odes to scraps that others would pass by. By bringing attention to what most take as trash or clutter, Wu is able to evoke more reflective states from her viewers. Each tableau balances the blank page with delicate brushwork to highlight refuse in a manner usually reserved for valuable possessions.
Janice Wu lives and works in Vancouver, BC. She holds a BFA from Emily Carr University. Her illustration work has been featured in major publications, including BUST, New York Magazine, The New York Times, and the Canada Post. This is her second exhibition with Back Gallery Project.

Janice Wu | Wishes (2015)

Wishes is an intimate examination in to our collective associations with memory, travel, and communication. Rendering an extensive collection of found, dated, forgotten postcards, this series acts as a typology or classification of sorts.

Meticulously drawn with pencil and watercolor in painstaking realism, Wishes reveals subtle variations of familiar ephemera. Postcards act as shortcut expressions, filled with romantic clichés, poetic exchanges and feelings of longing; yet also disclose monotonous details, seemingly futile information, and awkward attempts to describe new encounters. Wishes addresses the past, present, and future and the poignant nuances that surface from our efforts to capture, document, and read experiences.

Janice Wu received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Emily Carr University in 2013, she had a solo exhibition at the Burnaby Art Gallery Offsite in 2014 the same year she participated in the group exhibit "The Incubator" curated by Black & Yellow Gallery in 2013 she was in the exhibit MONOMANIA II: Vancouver Emerging at Trench Contemporary Art Gallery. Janice also received an Honorable Mention at the Grad Exhibition at Emily Carr University of Art & Design the year she graduated.

This will be Janice Wu's first exhibit at the Back Gallery Project.