Artist-in-Residence: Taaye
Centre A will be hosting local Vancouver–based artist Taaye in residence at Centre A from January 17 to March 21. During this period, Taaye will develop a new body of work exploring Chinese and Cantonese proverbs as cultural inheritances shaped by migration, displacement, and alienation.
Drawing from a proverb that evokes scattering in the aftermath of upheaval, the project reflects on how inherited language can function both as a way of understanding the world and as a source of estrangement within diasporic life.
Central to this inquiry is her use of mineral pigments (岩絵具 / 岩彩)—ground minerals combined with handmade binders. The slow, labor-intensive process resists immediacy and demands sustained bodily engagement, mirroring the ongoing negotiation of identity across cultural boundaries.
Come meet Taaye at the opening on Saturday! She will be working on site throughout the residency, with the studio open to the public every Saturday for open studio sessions.
Taaye (b. Hong Kong; based in Vancouver) is a process-driven artist whose work explores materiality, diasporic subjectivity, and the poetics of estrangement. Working primarily with East Asian mineral pigments (岩絵具 iwa-enogu; 岩彩 yán cǎi), her practice has been supported by major funding bodies, including the Canada Council for the Arts (2024, 2025), the BC Arts Council (2025), and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council Emerging Artist Grant (2025).
She has upcoming residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including group exhibitions at the Centre of International Contemporary Art (CICA), Vancouver, and Art Next Expo, Hong Kong.
Her engagement with mineral pigments deepened through specialised training at Tunghai University in Taichung, Taiwan (2024). She serves on the board of Access Gallery in Vancouver, and her works are held in private collections in Hong Kong, the United States, and Canada. Taaye holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.
The residency is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Cover Image:
Bird of descending 降鳥
21”x30” (50x70cm)
Malachite, Azurite, Obsidian, Silver foil, and
Iwaenogu on mashi paper
Painted in 2025
Photo credit Julian Rozental
