Spotlight on: Joel Chan

Every week we will be interviewing a different student, keeping you updated on their progress and helping you find out a bit more about the artist. First up in the Spotlight is Joel Chan...

What are you currently planning for the degree show?

“My studio research at the moment is about trying to construct, physically, the boundary between the real and the fictional by building narratives and partially fabricated situations around real stuff.” “So my plans for the exhibition include a museum exhibit about a failed toy maker from Falmouth, who I’ve been interested in since 2013 after finding one of his drawings in a secondhand book I bought from the bookshop on Falmouth’s High Street. I found out that this guy had come from a line of successful Cornish toymakers spanning generations. The exhibit will be a documentation of my research around his family’s company Gabriel and Sons and its fall. Following the journey of a fading Cornish treasure, the exhibit will include artifacts borrowed from the Falmouth Local History Society and the Tim Rice collection, a recreation of the toymakers studio that in 1994 he was forced to rent, in part, to a Chinese takeaway. There will also be work by invited artists and myself, in response to the artifacts in the exhibit.” “Of course at no point is it clear who out of any of these people are real… or if any of them are real at all. There is supposed to be an uncertainty about what is real research and what is fake reportage.”

How has your practice changed since starting your degree? “I started as a painter, I loved painting.” “But I think differently about art practice now. I just basically do whatever I like. I used to think that I should make things that are easy to display and easy to sell, like canvas paintings, pencil drawings, little ceramic sculptures that sort of thing… now if anyone wants to buy my work, I’ll wish them luck with getting it home in one piece.”

What do you find most inspiring for your artwork? “I borrow my ideas from other people. Some people might call it stealing, but its only stealing the ingredients. It’s like taking some flour and being accused of stealing a cake.” “I take my ideas from eavesdropped conversations on the train, at the bus stop or in ASDA. People always have stories to tell… then I make the interesting ones into some sort of narrative in my head, or maybe a counter narrative, and I make things about them.” What is the most indispensable item in your studio? “The crowbar probably, I work a lot with found wood so I need to break apart pallets and old furniture to convert.” Which artists do you admire and why? “I admire a lot of artists. I like the work of Jordan Baseman, Mike Nelson, Michael Landy, Daria Martin too.” “The Chapman brothers are cool, I like them a lot, and Grayson Perry’s got something about him that’s very good too.” What work of art do you wish you owned?

“Well its hard to own the kind of art I enjoy, that’s part of its charm I guess… its awkward… needs to be in a gallery and seen by people. You’ll never see copies of it in TK Maxx will you? Not really something for hanging in the dining room or on the back of the bathroom door if you see what I’m getting at.” “There is a beautiful painting from Asia that a friend of mine owns, from Thailand I think. It’s a busy painting, typically Asian, but there are lots of figures in it and lots going on. It’s discolored a lot from age but she refuses to have it cleaned up. I think I agree, its much nicer how it is. Every time I see it I think of new stories, new narratives about the situations it depicts.” “I’ll have to make an excuse to go around and see it again eventually.”

When and why did you become interested in art? “Not sure to be honest… I was creative as a kid; I used to break apart my toys to see how they were made. But art… I probably started to care somewhere in the middle of 2010. That’s the year I finished high school and started sixth form.” “Before that I was thinking about a career in politics.”

Do you remember the first piece of art you made that you felt proud of? “I don’t think I’ve made it yet… although I do have a vivid memory of entering something I was very proud of into a coloring competition as a kid. I don’t think I won, I don’t remember getting a prize or anything.” Where do you see yourself in ten years? “I’ll still be an artist, I’m sure. Where... I’m not certain, but probably somewhere new… I get bored of places I’ve already explored.”