Artist of the day: Artist of the day, March 19, 2020: Fang Tong, a Canadian Chinese-born photographer (#946)

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Artist of the day, March 19, 2020: Fang Tong, a Canadian Chinese-born photographer (#946)

Canadian Chinese-born photographer Fang Tong now lives and works in Vancouver. This multidisciplinary artist moved to Canada in 2001 and studied at the traditional fine arts faculty in Shanghai then the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. She had a successful career in painting, sculpture, design and other art fields. In recent years, she has focused on photography, and she has been awarded several major international photography awards.

Fang Tong is a cinematic style photographer, as a spectator of life. Her works are embedded with an implied narrative, which is left to the viewer to resolve over time with their own imagination. Reflecting her background in classical art, the photography is carefully planned to control the frame and the expression of details, giving her work an ethos of a painter.

Whether it’s capturing a family of five in quiet contemplation, a luggage-toting woman standing listlessly outside SkyTrain doors, or a couple in turmoil at a roadside motel, photographer Fang Tong’s work exudes a theatrical quality suited to the big screen. She takes great care in producing imagery that straddles the line between the strange and the mundane, carefully sketching scenes out with pencil and paper beforehand, location scouting and dressing her models, and meticulously orchestrating every last prop.

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