Brendan Lee Satish Tang reflects on the influences, tensions, and contradictions that define the postmodern world in his artistic practice. Tang brings the art historical canon into dialogue with pop culture, amalgamating aesthetic influences from Ming dynasty and Rococo ceramics with contemporary imagery, such as plastic toys and Japanese comic art, producing work that is paradoxically irreverent and deeply self-reflexive. While these hybrid compositions employ humor and play to engage the viewer, they also speak to more serious matters—war, climate change, geopolitics.
The composite nature of Tang’s work also reflects his interest in cultural appropriation and hybridity, a nod to his own ambiguous cultural identity. Although currently living and working in the unceded territory of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam Nations, Tang was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1975 to Trinidadian parents of mixed-Asian descent, and relocated to Canada as a young teen. Tang often uses his work to investigate the confluence of various aesthetic and intellectual influences, exploring the hybridization of material and non-material culture, as well as issues of race, class, and sexual identity. Rendered primarily in clay, Tang’s sculptural works are the product of intense labor and attention to detail, a reflection of the artist’s commitment to the technical execution of his craft. The artist describes himself as a “visual ethnographer” of sorts—his utmost aim is to create work that serves as a conduit for reflection and dialogue.
Tang received a BFA from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, before pursuing an MFA from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. After graduating, Tang held his first exhibitions in Canada, including his first solo exhibitions at New Wagner Art Gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery in 2006 and group exhibitions at James S. Murray Gallery, Crafthouse Gallery and New Wagnery Art Gallery in 2005. Tang has exhibited widely in Canada and the United States, including solo and two-person shows at The New Gallery in Calgary, Alberta (2007), MAI Gallery in Montréal (2009), South Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge, Alberta (2010), Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario (2013), the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver (2015), Sheppard Contemporary Gallery in Reno, Nevada (2016), Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan (2018), Nanaimo Art Gallery in Nanaimo, British Columbia (2021), and Gallery Jones in Vancouver (most recently in 2022), as well as group exhibitions at the Vancouver Island Short Film Festival in Nanaimo, British Columbia (2007), the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, Kentucky (2007), Gallery 1988 in Los Angeles (2007), the 52nd annual Salon des métiers d'art du Québec in Montréal (2007), the Clay and Glass Invitational at Atrium Gallery in Corning, New York (2008), the Toronto International Art Fair (2008), the Power Plant in Toronto (2009), the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2010), the Denver Art Museum (2011), the Gardiner Museum in Toronto (2012), the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (2013), the Seattle Art Fair (2015), the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (2016), the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in Quebec City (2018), and Two Rivers Gallery in Prince George, British Columbia (2024).
Tang has also been recognized globally, exhibiting at Art Labour in Shanghai (2011), the Foundation d'enterprise Bernardaud in Limoges, France (2015), the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche in Faenza, Italy (2018), Contemporary Istanbul (2024), and the National Museum in Oslo (2026). In 2017, Brendan Lee Satish Tang was announced as a finalist for the Loewe Foundation Craft Prize, with shows at 21_21 Gallery in Tokyo, Chamber in New York, and COAM in Madrid. Tang has also received several accolades for his work, such as the Nanaimo Culture and Heritage Award in 2022, and the Biennale Internationale de Vallauris Contemporary Ceramic Award in 2016. Tang's work can be found in various public collections including the Seattle Art Museum, Canada House, Gardiner Museum, Canadian Museum of History, Vancouver Art Gallery.