{{Short description|Canadian artist (born 1958)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}} {{Infobox artist | name = Ed Pien | image = EdPien.jpg | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1958|02|23}} | birth_place = Taipei, Taiwan | death_date = | death_place = | spouse = | field = | training = {{Ubl | BFA, University of Western Ontario (1982) | MFA, York University (1984) }} | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | elected = | known_for = {{Hlist | Painter | draftsperson}} }}
'''Ed Pien''' (born February 23, 1958) is a Canadian contemporary artist, known for his drawings and large-scale drawing-based installations inspired by multiple sources (Inuit as well as European and Chinese) and traditions,<ref name="LaPresse-Inuit-show " >{{cite news|last1=Clément|first1=Éric|title=Ed Pien et le nouvel univers inuit|url=https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/arts-visuels/201402/17/01-4739569-ed-pien-et-le-nouvel-univers-inuit.php|website=La Presse|date=17 February 2014 |access-date=27 May 2016}}</ref> printmaking, paper cuts and video and photography.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Delgado |first1=Jerome |title=Ed Pien and his ghosts: twenty years of drawings |url=https://www.ledevoir.com/culture/arts-visuels/538412/ed-pien-et-ses-fantomes-vingt-ans-de-dessins |website=www.ledevoir.com |date=6 October 2018 |publisher=Le Devoir, Oct 6, 2018 |access-date=2021-07-14}}</ref><ref name="de Zegher2016 " >{{cite book|author=Catherine de Zegher |author-link=Catherine de Zegher |title=Ed Pien: Luminous Shadows |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9bShjwEACAAJ |date=30 June 2016 |publisher=Black Dog Publishing |isbn=978-1-910433-96-6 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u6M0AQAAIAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Art & Collection Group}}</ref>
==Life== Pien was born in 1958 in Taipei, Taiwan, emigrating to Canada at the age of 11 with his family.<ref name="Chin-listing " >{{cite web|title=Artist/Maker Name "Pien, Ed"|url=http://www.rcip-chin.gc.ca/application/aac-aic/artiste_detailler_bas-artist_detail_bas.app;jsessionid=DC3B5A5B7D07FFFC0ACF9CCE1F4BAC69?rID=29027&fID=2&lang=en&qlang=en&pID=821&ps=50&sort=AM_ASC|website=Canadian Heritage Information Network|access-date=27 May 2016|archive-date=11 June 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611170703/http://www.rcip-chin.gc.ca/application/aac-aic/artiste_detailler_bas-artist_detail_bas.app;jsessionid=DC3B5A5B7D07FFFC0ACF9CCE1F4BAC69?rID=29027&fID=2&lang=en&qlang=en&pID=821&ps=50&sort=AM_ASC|url-status=dead}}</ref> At a young age, he began to draw and feels drawing propels everything he does.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Enright |first1=Robert |title=The Art of Being What It Doesn't Have to Be: An Interview with Ed Pien |url=https://bordercrossingsmag.com/article/the-art-of-being-what-it-doesnt-have-to-be-an-interview-with-ed-pien |website=bordercrossingsmag.com |publisher=Border Crossings 115, Sept 2010 |access-date=2021-07-14}}</ref> He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Western Ontario (1982) and a Master of Fine Arts from York University (1984).<ref name="Koffler-show " >{{cite web|title=Ed Pien: The Promise of Solitude|url=http://kofflerarts.org/exhibitions/2015/11/10/ed-pien-the-promise-of-solitude/|website=Koffler Centre of the Arts|access-date=27 May 2016}}</ref>
Pien lives and works in Toronto, where he was a professor in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto.<ref name=" de Zegher2016 " /> He has also been an Artist-in-Residence, Painting and Drawing, Studio Arts at Concordia University, Montreal.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien |url=https://www.concordia.ca/finearts/studio-arts/faculty.html?fpid=edward-pien |website=www.concordia.ca |publisher=Concordia University, Montreal |access-date=2021-07-13}}</ref>
==Career== Pien's practice is drawing-based. For his cut-outs, he uses an X-Acto knife as his drawing tool and traditional Japanese paper,<ref>{{cite web |title=SHADOW PUPPETS |url=https://ago.ca/learn/ago-makes/shadow-puppets |website=ago.ca |publisher=Art Gallery of Ontario |access-date=2021-07-14}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Field Trip: Artist Talk with Ed Pien |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30X-6YJReo8 |website=www.youtube.com | date=11 December 2020 |publisher=You Tube/ Art Gallery of Greater Victoria |access-date=2021-07-14}}</ref> or he constructs maze-like spaces using walls of crinkly paper grounds with drawings on them and through these large-scale installations he fashions a conduit into feeling and thought.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Rodgers |first1=Margaret |title= Ed Pien: In a Realm of Others |url=https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/espace/2005-n74-espace1048765/8954ac/ |website=www.erudit.org |publisher=Espace Sculpture, (74), 41–42 |access-date=2020-08-17}}</ref> He also is a photographer. In 2019, the Glenbow Museum (Calgary) held an exhibition titled ''Ed Pien: Our Beloved'' of 144 framed photographs of flowers hung together in a monumental, wall-filling installation to commemorate decorated gravesites at a cemetery in Santiago, Chile which is the final resting place for many political dissidents and victims of the reign of Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien Our Beloved |url=https://www.glenbow.org/exhibitions/ed-pien |website=www.glenbow.org |date=29 June 2019 |publisher=Glenbow Museum |access-date=2021-07-14}}</ref> Also in 2019, he made a ghostly new print at NSCAD in collaboration, as he said, with the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hosein |first1=Lise |title=Article |url=https://www.cbc.ca/arts/exhibitionists/why-ed-pien-collaborated-with-the-atlantic-ocean-to-make-his-ghostly-new-print-1.5385615 |website=www.cbc.ca |access-date=21 October 2023}}</ref> In 2020, to bear witness to the disruptions and unease brought on by the pandemic, he concentrated on making his ''Invasive Species'', series of green-coloured drawings inspired by decorative Chinoiserie patterns as well as carefully observed plants and insects thriving in his own garden.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcSQxtlk08 |website=www.youtube.com | date=17 October 2020 |publisher=You Tube |access-date=2021-07-13}}</ref>
His work has been exhibited extensively throughout Canada and internationally, including, among others, at the Drawing Centre (New York), the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; The Canadian Culture Centre in Paris;<ref name="ago " /> Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver), the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa) partnering with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Cambridge Galleries, The Contemporary Art Museum (Monterrey, Mexico), The Goethe Institute (Berlin),<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien |url=https://www.museejoliette.org/en/publications/ed_pien_br_haven_of_delight |website=www..org |publisher=Musée Joliette |access-date=2021-07-12}}</ref> the 18th Edition of the Sydney Biennale and the 5th edition of the Moscow Biennale.<ref name="Concordia-talk " >{{cite web|title=Conversations in Contemporary Art Presents Ed Pien|url=https://www.concordia.ca/cuevents/finearts/studio-arts/2015/03/19/conversations-incontemporaryartpresentsedpien.html|website=Concordia University|access-date=27 May 2016}}</ref> ''The Corridor of Rain'' was featured at the Curitiba Biennial, in Brazil in 2018.<ref name="ago " /> In 2022, he showed ''Present: Past/Future'' at the Art Gallery of Ontario, a multisensory environment, which captured moments and memories of elders in Havana, Cuba which he had collected since 2014.<ref name="ago " >{{cite web |title=Ed Pien: Present: Past/Future |url=https://ago.ca/exhibitions/ed-pien-present-past/future |website=ago.ca |publisher=Art Gallery of Ontario |access-date=15 July 2022}}</ref> It marked a change in his work into documentary film and portrait photography.<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien: Past, Present, Future |url=https://www.gallerieswest.ca/magazine/stories/ed-pien |website=www.gallerieswest.ca |date=25 July 2022 |publisher=Galleries West Magazine |access-date=28 July 2022}}</ref> Pien's work is represented by Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain (PFOAC),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ed Pien - Overview |url=https://www.pfoac.com/en/artists/40-ed-pien/overview/ |access-date=2025-12-22 |website=Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain}}</ref> a contemporary art gallery in Montreal, Quebec.
==Selected public collections== Pien's work is held internationally in the collections of over twenty-five museums, including the National Gallery of Canada,<ref name="NGC-collection " >{{cite web|title=Collections: Ed Pien 1958 -|url=http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=43846|website=National Gallery of Canada|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref> the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Centrum Beeldende Kunst (the Netherlands), Museo de Arte y Diseno Contemporaneo (Costa Rica) and the Ordos Art Museum (Mongolia, China).<ref>{{cite web |title=Ed Pien |url=https://www.cacnart.com/-ed-pien |website=www.cacnart.com |publisher=Canada and China Contemporary Art Communications |access-date=2021-07-12}}</ref>
== Publications == * {{cite book |last1=Pien |first1=Ed |last2=Beaudry|first2=Eve-Lyne| title=Ed Pien: l'antre des délices = haven of delight |date=2010 |publisher=Musée d'art de Joliette |location=Joliette, Québec |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Ed%20Pien%20:%20l%27antre%20des%20d%C3%A9lices%2FHaven%20of%20Delight.%20&tab=Everything&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book |last1=de Zegher|first1=Catherine|title=Ed Pien : luminous shadows. |date=2016 |publisher=Black Dog and McIntosh Art Gallery |location=London, Ontario|url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,ed%20pien%20luminous%20shadows&tab=Everything&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0}} * {{cite book |last1=Jansma |first1=Linda |last2=Hatt|first2=Gordon|last3= Kellman|first3=Tila Landon|title=Ed Pien: in a realm of others |date=2005 |publisher=Southern Alberta Art Gallery |location=Lethbridge, Alta. |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&tab=Everything&docid=alma991106619275606196}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pien, Ed}} Category:1958 births Category:Artists from Toronto Category:Living people Category:Academic staff of the University of Toronto Category:University of Western Ontario alumni Category:York University alumni Category:Canadian contemporary artists Category:Chinese emigrants to Canada Category:Academic staff of the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design