Skip to main content

Howie Tsui: Visual Arts Open Lecture

Image of Howie Tsui

The Visual Arts Lecture Series presents talks by leading Canadian and international artists, curators, and academics.

Join Howie Tsui, acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and faculty for the Visual Arts Thematic Residency - The System and Other Universes for an afternoon talk.

Howie Tsui (徐浩恩, b. 1978, Hong Kong) is based on unceded Coast Salish territories. His multi-disciplinary practice spans ink brush painting, sound sculpture, lenticular lightbox and installation. Tsui constructs tense, fictive environments that undermine revered art forms and narrative genres, often stemming from the Chinese literati tradition. He employs a stylized form of derisive and exaggerated imagery as a way to satirize and disarm broadening regimes and their programs of cultural hegemony. The most notable branch of his practice involves the use of algorithmic animation sequences to raise questions around order, chaos and the potential of social harmony through self-organized societies. Tsui synthesizes diverging socio-cultural anxieties around superstition, trauma, surveillance and otherness through a distinctly outsider lens to cast light onto liminal and diasporic experiences.

Recent solo exhibitions include: Hanart TZ (Hong Kong, 2024), Glenbow Museum (2023), The Power Plant (2020); with group exhibitions at the Macao International Art Biennale, Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), Art Gallery of New South Wales. Public collections include: National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, McMichael Art Collection. Tsui was awarded the Joseph Stauffer Prize (2005), and long-listed for the Sobey Award (2018). He holds a BFA from the University of Waterloo.

To learn more about Howie Tsui visit howietsui.com.