Alan Chin: Palimpsests

Alan Chin: Palimpsests

 

May 9 – June 20, 2026

Curated by Sophia Quach McCabe, Ph.D. 

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Location

AMPHI, 49 W. Del Mar Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91105

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Gallery Hours

Wednesday to Saturday, 12 pm – 5 pm

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Contact

info@amphigallery.com

1(626)831-9988

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“We are on the shoulders of giants.”
                                               -- Alan Chin

 

palimpsest:
-- writing material (such as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased; something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface

 

Alan Chin: Palimpsests presents a new series of paintings and ceramic sculptures by Los Angeles-based artist Alan Chin, along with his diverse, interdisciplinary practice and multi-layered approach to artmaking over the last 20 years. Chin’s mantra acknowledges his familial and artistic lineages and legacies, including those who supported his artistic formation. These lineages and diverse layers appear like a palimpsest in Chin’s works, welcoming us into his artistic formation and continuing journey.

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Chin’s Red Envelopes series gestures to the Chinese ritual of intergenerational gifting of “hongbao” (red envelopes) filled with lucky money. The monumental red canvases, with their palimpsests of abstraction, honors Chin’s elders and chosen families.

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Ingrained in Chin’s practice is also his respect and care for the natural world, especially bonsai. This exhibition marks the debut of Chin’s monumental ceramic bonsai and Palimpsests of Nature series, a wonderland of imagined nature in greens, pinks, blues, and blacks. Chin’s interest in nature includes how its patterns serve as records of time, exemplified in the circular growth rings of trees—transformed by Chin’s hands into spiral pinch pot ceramics such as Blue Ridge (2023)—and how their kinetic structures adapt to different environments and speak to an ongoing story of survival, as offered by the artist’s tenmoku-glazed reimagined bonsai sculpture Ahu (2025).

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The journey of personal memories and ritual practice through artmaking is also shared by Chin’s Light Paintings and Throne series. The abstract patterns of the luxurious silky black-colored Light Paintings become visible to the eye only when viewed from various angles, suggesting that, like in life, one needs to shift one’s perspective to see the entire picture. In his yellow Throne series, Chin married painting and sculpture using Belgian linen and the humble potter’s wheel, collapsing the chasm between the two disciplines. Working across mediums, Chin layers his ceramic vessels and sculptures with cultural meaning. Using wood-fired kilns to create tenmoku-glazed stoneware bowls and vases in deep blacks and iron reds, Chin connects his ceramics to those of Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) China. Similarly, the porcelain and stoneware Jade Sippers echo Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279) stem cups.

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Alan Chin: Palimpsests is curated by Sophia Quach McCabe, Ph.D.