Clarence Chun (b. 1975) primarily works in abstraction to reveal narratives hinged on the artist’s relationship with the places he had lived, particularly the influence of the bodies of water as a dominant force in his dynamic approach to image-making. Chun meticulously executes compositions that characterize his ability to visually articulate a momentum — narrating the speed of waves and currents of seas, oceans, and rivers as he reflects on the lives he had lived near them. Having spent part of his childhood in Leyte, Philippines, and later, living as an adult in Hawaii, Chun’s body of works is charged with the technical aspects of abstraction inclined to depict biographical narratives extracted from his personal history as a first-generation immigrant. Thus, painting is used to portray identity through the layers of texture applied on the canvas, which ironically seems flat from afar but entangled in many layers when observed closely.

In 1999, Chun was awarded the Ellen Battell Stoekel Fellowship from Yale University School of Art, and, had later received his BFA in Painting (cum laude) from the University of Houston School of Art and his MFA in Painting from the School of Visual Arts in New York. Chun also received the John Young Artist Award from the Honolulu Museum of Art in 2013. His works have been exhibited widely in Southeast Asia, in the United States, and in Europe and are also in the permanent collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art (USA), Hawai’i State Art Museum (USA), and National Museum of Fine Arts (Manila, PH). His works have been presented at Art Dubai (2022), Dallas Art Fair (2022), and Art Fair Philippines (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023).