The Lantern City is a celebration of the Lunar New Year taking place in various locations across Vancouver in February. Artists from a wide-range of creative and cultural backgrounds work with the festival to produce large-scale illuminated lanterns featuring their artwork. Pendulum Gallery is participating in the Festival for the first time this year and will feature the work of Taiwanese Canadian artist, Leanne Lai Hildebrand.
Lai Hildebrand creates paintings using chigiri-e, a form of Japanese paper art. Drawing inspiration from her own experiences navigating migrations of culture and career, her work is filled with the spirit of rebirth and reinvention.
Chigiri-e, originally a Japanese art form, utilizes as its primary technique coloured paper torn and then assembled onto a handmade paper sheet. Botanical and Landscape scenes are often the subject matter of this art-form, which depends on the handmade paper, with its rough edges and textured surfaces, to create images that suggest watercolour paintings in relief. The exhibition consists of a number of her Chigiri-e botanical works as well as 6 large, custom-made lanterns that are suspended within the Gallery. The lanterns feature imagery created by Lai Hildebrand that has been photographed and printed onto fabric. The printed sheet is wrapped and fitted into the 6’ high x 32” diameter lantern frame and illuminated by an internal light source, creating art works of great beauty and delight.
-------------The Lantern City is a LunarFest project that began in 2019. Lanterns are a prominent Asian tradition for festivals. The first edition of the lanterns included artwork from local Indigenous artists. While all the lanterns might not always directly reference the Lunar New Year, these lantern installations are a superb visual representation of bridging cultures and creating connections.
With a vision of uniting the diverse communities of Vancouver, The Lantern City invites artists of all backgrounds to participate in sharing stories and welcoming the new year. Other Lantern City sites include the Vancouver Art Gallery, Granville Island, and Jack Poole Plaza at Coal Harbour.
This exhibition provides the public with an opportunity to see new works that explore her latest interest in materials and imagery, and older works that have laid the foundation for her current creative direction. Viewers who are familiar with Linden’s career will see in the new works an homage to Methods she has mastered in past artworks. Those encountering her work for the first time will notice the continuity and foundation provided by her adherence to a well-stocked tool belt of Methods, and her ability to combine complex meaning with science-based investigation.
Leanne Lai Hildebrand, Iris, 2023
19"x23"
Paper