Road to eternity

Material gains

As far as sculpting materials go, titanium is more durable than most metals and - figuratively speaking - is likely to last for all eternity. "It is stubborn and rigid, and must be understood before it can be tamed," says the artist. He feels his use of titanium in Transcendence will help emphasize the fact that the desire to achieve an enlightened state is eternal.

Putnam particularly admires the liminal quality of Chan's sculptures: "They seem to express titanium's flowing molten state, which highlights its materiality, while at the same time expressing a sense of transience or ephemerality." He goes on to add that while being huge and heavy, Chan's sculptures also appear weightless, as if floating in the air. "There is a haunting quality to them and the strange, compressed perspective of Chan's sere, enigmatic faces causes their appearance to shift as the observer walks around the sculptures."

Though Chan is better known as a master jewelry designer and his work is deeply rooted in Chinese culture, he has always been open to absorbing elements from a diversity of cultures. "I embrace anything that enriches my art, regardless of its origin, be it Eastern or Western, as my aim is to transcend cultural, national, and temporal constraints, and become a vessel for global unity and a universal language," he says. "I might employ the technique of cutting emeralds to shape jade or use space-age metals common in scientific research to depict meditative figures, for I believe such exchanges can ignite more-potent creativity."