Kelcy Timmons Chan

Kelcy Timmons Chan (they/them) is a Cantonese Canadian American queer artist who works as a multidisciplinary contemporary pop artist and mural painter. In their work they explore community, duality and belonging through their lens as a biracial, gender-fluid, immigrant.

In their practice, Kelcy considers how food allows us to connect with our history and identities. They explore how our relationships help define what home feels like and how it gives us space to belong to.

Using food, little purple people and whimsical architecture, Kelcy promotes and supports local businesses, family-run restaurants and queer community spaces, by considering how food and people shape community and culture.

Read more here.

Little purple people have been an ongoing motif in Kelcy’s art work since 2021, representing community and queerness. The colour purple - specifically lavender and violet - has held important historical meaning in reference to the 2SLQBTQIA+ community.

From early usages in ancient Greece, to modern day - like in the Canadian sapphic music festival, Lavender Wild - purple has always been tied to queer history and referential to queer people.

In Kelcy’s work, they use little purple people to highlight that queerness and queer people are everywhere, and that no one should assume otherwise.

This motif not only helps folks identify Kelcy’s work, but also reminds the 2SLGBTQIA+ community that Kelcy’s art will prioritize them and share their stories.

Why Little Purple People?

Kelcy is biracial. Born in Hong Kong and raised by a Cantonese mother and a German/American father, they immigrated to Canada in 2001. Growing up, they were called all sorts of names because people saw them differently to most asian people.

Kelcy was called bleached, wasian, halfie, white washed, and someone even came up with “egg”. Like “banana”, “oreo”, “coconut” or “twinkie”, people came up with the term “egg” because they believed that Kelcy’s ‘yellowness’ only existed on the inside; people thought it was a funny joke. Although Kelcy knew it was wrong and was uncomfortable, they went along with it because they avoided harsher names and slurs like ch*nk. Kelcy recognizes how much privilege exists in their specific biracial experience.

By using their egg motif, they reclaim these labels and highlight how common an experience this is for mixed-race folks and immigrants. In many of their egg paintings they use colours from various queer flags. They want these pieces to be a signal to queer people that this art is for them and about them, more specifically if you are of multiple races, genders and/or sexualities. It is not hard to acknowledge that people can be many things at once, and their eggs do that.

No two fried eggs are exactly the same, and neither are two mixed experiences.

Why Eggs?

Kelcy paints murals all across the Greater Toronto Area and is interested in painting nationally and internationally. Kelcy’s murals are about bringing vibrance to urban communities whilst representing the themes they predominantly work with in their artist practice: belonging, intersectionality, duality, as well as their various cultures and communities.

Kelcy has worked with StART Toronto, Halton Hills and Bellbox Murals and has done work with several private clients. Kelcy is open to painting their original designs as well as designs on behalf of others, and is currently open to new opportunities.

To view their murals, see the Murals tab and follow this link for the locations of all of their pieces.

For any inquiries or commissions, please email them at kelcy.timmonschan@gmail.com