KELCY TIMMONS CHAN

Kelcy Timmons Chan (they/them) is a Cantonese Canadian American queer artist born in Hong Kong, raised in Vancouver, and based in Toronto. Since graduating, they have worked as a multidisciplinary pop artist, mural painter and artist educator.

They graduated with a Visual Studies Specialist degree in 2019 from the Daniel's Faculty of Landscape, Architecture and Design at the University of Toronto. Since then Kelcy has exhibited at a variety of local venues including Northern Contemporary Gallery, The Drake Hotel, with Artist Project, and with Toronto Outdoor Art Fair. They have painted over two dozen murals across Canada.

Through their lens as a biracial gender-fluid immigrant, Kelcy explores what it feels like to find belonging and have cultural pride. They examine how food is a love language in immigrant cultures. They amplify stories of family-owned restaurants and queer communities highlighting how our spaces of belonging directly tie us to our history, the land we live on, and our communities.

With the artist’s signature motif, the little purple people, Kelcy whimsically exemplifies the presence of the LGBTQIA+ community everywhere, and in many of their pieces spotlights the intersection of their Asian heritage and queer identity.

Using little purple people, Kelcy creates intricate, bustling scenes representative of immigrant and queer spaces, inviting the viewer to consider how their experiences with their community and with food have contributed to what home and belonging feel like.

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