Canal Cheong Jagerroos | 張彤茹 (b.1968) is a Chinese-Finnish contemporary visual artist who grew up in an artistic family in Macau. Cheong Jagerroos lives and works between Helsinki, Shanghai, Nice, Berlin, and Tokyo.
In a unique and fascinating way, Cheong Jagerroos combines the past and present, East and West, traditional practices and abstraction. For the past 30 years, she has lived and worked in numerous countries, from Asia to Europe and Africa. The unique experiences of these culturally diverse places have influenced her practice both consciously and subconsciously. In her mixed media works and immersive installation exhibitions, Cheong Jagerroos rebuilds the language, signs, and symbols of traditional Chinese art. Her intensive process of deconstructing and layering rice paper drawings with paint and different materials give birth to vibrant, harmonious, and enigmatic works.
As an acclaimed international artist, Canal Cheong Jagerroos has exhibited extensively worldwide. Her ongoing installation project 'Floating Island' and co-founded art project ‘Blue and Red' have been exhibited in numerous art museums in China and Finland from 2018 to 2020, including Korundi Rovaniemi Art Museum, Joensuu Art Museum, Jyväskylä Art Museum, and Salo Art Museum in Finland, and Xian Art Museum in China.
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CANAL CHEONG JAGERROOS
A DIARY OF HOPE AND REFLECTION -
Rice paper:
“Growing up in an artistic family, rice paper has been present throughout my life and I incorporate it into all of my works. I layer multiple rice paper paintings over each other with acrylic, oil, and mixed media to achieve a sense of depth on the canvas.” -
Canal Cheong Jagerroos
Floating Island projects | 2018 - 2020 -
Diary Series:
“Creating the ‘Diary’ series was a process of self-healing, grounding myself, and finding a new direction. We all carry different emotions with us at once, from the very bright to the very dark. With my work, I want to inspire others to move forward.”
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Orange New Hope Series:
“Orange has always been one of my favorite colors, but I have very seldom applied it in my work. To me, orange has the intense positive energy of the sun and new life.” -
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Reflection Series:
“The fear and confusion at the start of the pandemic was the context in which the ‘Reflection’ series arose. At times, I felt the brush was so heavy I could not pick it up. It is a deep analysis of myself, our new situation, and the fragility of humanity.” -
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Philosophy:
“The ancient Chinese philosopher Laozi has a saying that I always apply to my paintings: a good traveler has no fixed plans and has no intention of arriving. This is what I want my viewers to feel when they look at my work.”
“My work is a path on which my audience can start a journey of excitement and discovery. There is a saying that you can never complete an artwork, you can only abandon it. The viewers continue the work and they define how it ends; I just open the door.” -
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Deconstruction:
“The rice paper paintings are enormous to begin with, and then I tear them apart. Deconstruction might sound negative, but you need to disassemble and reassemble something if you want it to progress.”“When I tear a rice paper painting into pieces, it feels liberating; it’s like letting go of a concept so that I can reconstruct multiple new ones from it.”
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Canal Jagerroos at her stiudio in Shanghai
