For over thirty years, Jan Wade has been creating mixed-media paintings, textiles and sculptural objects, drawing upon her lived experience as an African Canadian person and her mixed cultural heritage. Born and raised in Hamilton, Wade has been living in Vancouver since the early 1990s. This will be her first exhibition in Hamilton, and an opportunity for our communities to re-connect with her work.
Jan Wade: Soul Power brings together the artist’s diverse body of work alongside new pieces made specifically for the exhibition. Personal experience and sustained research inform Wade’s unique practice, which she conceptualizes as an ongoing journey—one that is philosophical, cultural, intellectual and embodied—as she explores the places and practices of her ancestors alongside contemporary political concerns and social issues.
Political, social, spiritual and material transformations are integral to Wade’s practice, and she often uses found objects and recycled materials in her works. Picked up in alleys, given to her by friends and sourced from thrift stores, these objects are used to point to a “generational ecological consciousness practiced by the disenfranchised.” In other words, Wade’s unique aesthetic was born out of necessity as well as social conscience.
Both Wade’s materials and processes reflect a continued interest in the traditions of making as handed down from generation to generation. This sense of continuity between past and present informs all aspects of her art making. Painted wood, text, symbols and common everyday objects including buttons, figurines, Scrabble tiles and religious icons are assembled into large-scale sculptures and installations. Textile pieces stemming from the traditions of Black Southern quilting, such as the abstract forms of Gee’s Bend quilts and African and Indigenous textiles, also feature in her practice.
Alongside text and painted blocks of bold colours, Wade employs repetition, accumulation, open-endedness and aspects of improvisation connected to the traditions of jazz and blues in her art. She adds to, paints over and continually evolves works over time.
Organized by the Art Gallery of Hamilton in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Curated by Siobhan McCraken Nixon, Assistant Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery with Melissa Bennett, Senior Curator, AGH
Header Image:
Jan Wade, Breathe, 2009–20 (installation view, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2020)
embroidery on linen
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, General Acquisition Fund
Photo: Ian Lefebvre, Vancouver Art Gallery
Featured Image:
Jan Wade, Memory Jug, 2016
acrylic, found objects
Collection of Surrey Art Gallery
Photo: Dennis Ha
Jan Wade, Prophecy, 1990-20
wood, metal, plastic, found objects, paint
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, General Acquisition Fund
Photo: Ian Lefebvre, Vancouver Art Gallery