TIAN Contemporain is pleased to present Quiet Exuberance, a solo exhibition of photographic works by Canadian-Chinese artist Lew Yung-Chien. This multifaceted body of work expands on Lew’s artistic philosophy, exploring the use of photographic techniques and technology as alternative ways of seeing, feeling, and being.

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Over the course of his decades-long career in the arts, Lew draws on a variety of inspirations from both Eastern and Western cultural and artistic traditions, blending principles of mindful harmonious composition with the uninhibited verve of expressive instinct. Driven by a sense of reverence for that which can be found in the ordinary spontaneous beauty of the everyday, Lew’s photographic theory of “swiftism” moves beyond the surface level of the visual and technical to place greater emphasis on feeling and the cultivation of sensitivity, intuition, and reflection. The photographic apparatus is wielded “as a paintbrush,” mediating between the artist’s inner experience of the world and the external subject being captured, with minimal intervention. Instead, scenes emerge organically through a series of gestures unveiling flashes of candid reality. The familiar visual vocabulary of nature landscapes, humans-in-motion, and city streets is heightened by the artistic feeling transposed through the poetry of the lens, transforming visions of everyday life into expressive painterly abstractions.

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Lew Yung-Chien, RCA (born 1938) is a Canadian-Chinese photographer, artist, and author. Lew graduated in 1961 from the Department of Fine Arts, National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU). He then studied corporate identity design at l’École supérieure des arts modernes de Paris in 1963 before settling in Montreal, Canada in 1967. In 2015 Lew was honored as a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA). A published author, he wrote and photo-illustrated L’esprit du taï-chi and received the Arts Society of China 2011 Award (Taiwan) for his illustrated book 60 Chinese Cookies. He has lectured and exhibited in Quebec, California, and China.