Jan Wade
b. 1952, Hamilton, ON
Jan Wade was born to a Black Canadian father with familial origins in the American South and a Canadian mother of European descent. Raised in a relatively segregated but close-knit Black community within the city, her formative years were heavily influenced by her local African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was also greatly influenced by Southern US Black culture and aesthetics from the perspectives of her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother.
Wade studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design (1972–76). She moved to Vancouver in 1983 and became part of the underground art and music scene in the city, with its innovative performances, do-it-yourself art shows, anti-establishment ethos and spontaneous happenings. During this period Wade began her research into African diasporic spiritual practices and decided she wanted her art to reflect where she came from and who she is, commencing her unique artistic journey marked by self-sufficiency, empowerment, hope and radical joy. The artist produces a wide range of mixed-media works made entirely from found or readymade objects and recycled materials.
After three decades spent on the fringe of the cultural mainstream, Hamilton-born, Vancouver-based artist Jan Wade (b.1952) is receiving overdue acknowledgement for her unique contributions to Canadian art. Jan Wade: Soul Power—the landmark first solo exhibition by a Black woman in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s ninety-year history—presents the artist’s mixed-media assemblages, paintings, textiles, and sculptural objects from the 1990s to the present day.
Jan Wade was born to a Black Canadian father with familial origins in the American South and a Canadian mother of European descent. Raised in a relatively segregated but close-knit Black community within the city, her formative years were heavily influenced by her local African Methodist Episcopal Church. She was also greatly influenced by Southern US Black culture and aesthetics from the perspectives of her paternal grandmother and great-grandmother.
Wade studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design (1972–76). She moved to Vancouver in 1983 and became part of the underground art and music scene in the city, with its innovative performances, do-it-yourself art shows, anti-establishment ethos and spontaneous happenings. During this period Wade began her research into African diasporic spiritual practices and decided she wanted her art to reflect where she came from and who she is, commencing her unique artistic journey marked by self-sufficiency, empowerment, hope and radical joy. The artist produces a wide range of mixed-media works made entirely from found or readymade objects and recycled materials.
After three decades spent on the fringe of the cultural mainstream, Hamilton-born, Vancouver-based artist Jan Wade (b.1952) is receiving overdue acknowledgement for her unique contributions to Canadian art. Jan Wade: Soul Power—the landmark first solo exhibition by a Black woman in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s ninety-year history—presents the artist’s mixed-media assemblages, paintings, textiles, and sculptural objects from the 1990s to the present day.
“(...) I was born an artist as far as I know…The visual was always of interest to me…I was drawing before I spoke. I was a late talker…my Mom says I did not talk baby talk…they were beginning to think something might be wrong…but then one day I just started to talk…like I had just been observing and waiting until I knew how it was done then…out it came…and this makes sense…out is a big part of my process…I look and watch…I read and research…I meditate and see…and then…all of a sudden…something pops out…I don’t always understand it at the moment…but I do not like to censor myself…I know it will become clear…either right away or eventually…
I don’t know if it did not occur to my parents…or…they might not have seen being an artist as an option for me. I was Black and female…it might not have been the sort of thing they could see as a possibility for me…sad…but true…"
(Jan Wade, “Jan Wade: Soul Power”, Vancouver Art Gallery 2022, p. 41)
Past exhibition at MRG
"High Anxiety" curated by Mina Totino
High anxiety. Our default setting for the last 18 months. So many uncertainties around health, livelihood, and social codes. As a friend observed, she has felt it all so keenly that words fail her. The exhibition’s title is an expression of our collective state of mind. How better for artists to express themselves (and to a degree the mindset of their viewers) in this uncertain period, and in life, than through their work? Mina Totino, this exhibition’s curator has assembled six artists who have explored this state of anxiety, either recently or pre-Covid, in a way, pulling a thread in a garment of clothing until it unravels or picking at a scab until the fresh skin below becomes visible.
Totino has had a long-standing relationship with all but one of the artists here. She and Jan Wade were employees at a coffee bar together ain the 1980s. She has been friends with Myfanwy MacLeod for many decades: recently, MacLeod has used Totino’s studio to continue her ceramic work, a new direction in her practice. Totino has long shared her ceramic studio and kiln with Nicole Ondre, exhibiting with her in The Eyes Have Walls, an exhibition at the West Vancouver Art Museum in 2020. She has known Philippe Raphanel for many years, an admirer of his highly precise paintings. She knows the production of her partner, Stan Douglas, intimately, observing the development of his projects since they met in art school. In other words, her ties to each of these artists have been strengthened by age and life. Russna Kaur is the one artist with whom she has become recently acquainted, woven into this mix because of her sympathetic approach to Totino's own attitudes towards painting.
continue reading here
Tex by Hilary Letwin
Totino has had a long-standing relationship with all but one of the artists here. She and Jan Wade were employees at a coffee bar together ain the 1980s. She has been friends with Myfanwy MacLeod for many decades: recently, MacLeod has used Totino’s studio to continue her ceramic work, a new direction in her practice. Totino has long shared her ceramic studio and kiln with Nicole Ondre, exhibiting with her in The Eyes Have Walls, an exhibition at the West Vancouver Art Museum in 2020. She has known Philippe Raphanel for many years, an admirer of his highly precise paintings. She knows the production of her partner, Stan Douglas, intimately, observing the development of his projects since they met in art school. In other words, her ties to each of these artists have been strengthened by age and life. Russna Kaur is the one artist with whom she has become recently acquainted, woven into this mix because of her sympathetic approach to Totino's own attitudes towards painting.
continue reading here
Tex by Hilary Letwin
"I Am Jan Wade | Beginnings"
Video produced by the Vancouver Art Gallery on the occasion of Jan Wade's solo exhibition "Jan Wade: Soul Power"
Exhibition View | Images by Rachel Topham Photography