Pan, Ren Light

Ren Light Pan is a Chinese-American transgender artist living and working in New York, New York. Her work engages with biographical issues dealing with hybridized and transgressive cultural and gender identities. Working between Eastern and Western art history, her strategic use of traditional Chinese ink against modes of contemporary painting—namely readymade or anti-gestures, deconstruction as well as techniques influenced by photographic, filmic and printmaking processes—opened a space for contentious harmony.

Born in an immigrant family, she grew up speaking Mandarin with a strong Chinese identity. Her early interests included oil painting, photography and filmmaking. After receiving her B.A. in New Media – Film/video at the University of California San Diego in 2012, the artist fell into a multi-year depression where she turned to ink painting for solace. The work came from a deep desire for divorce: from the hand, the body, the self. To the artist, her repositioning of artistic agency and authorship was the first step of many toward her eventual reconciliation with her gender identity.

In 2016, Ren Light Pan underwent a transition, relocating to Los Angeles and ceasing her painting practice for a period of 7 years. However, in 2022, the artist rediscovered her past works and reengaged with them, embarking on a journey to explore the potential of ink as a process-oriented dialogue within her posthumous practice. This marked the first time her artworks were exhibited, including her debut solo and group shows at Queer Thoughts in New York and Summoning Memories: Art Beyond Chinese Traditions at Asia Society Texas in Houston in 2023. The Ink Alchemy at Alisan Fine Arts-Central Gallery in the same year, marking Pan's first exhibition in Asia. Subsequently, in 2024, we showcased her work in Art SG, Singapore and in the current summer exhibition Themes and Variations at our New York Gallery until August 23.