Joe Fan

Joe Fan, born in Hong Kong in 1962, came to Scotland to study Graphic Design at Aberdeen College of Commerce. He was then advised by an Aberdeen College lecturer to apply for a place at Gray’s School of Art to study Fine Art. After successfully gaining a place at Gray’s one of his teachers was Gordon Bryce, whose focus on colour and surface influenced Fan. Following graduation in 1988, Fan won the Miller Homes Young Scottish Artist of the Year, and was sent to Paris to spend time at the Cite Internationale des Arts from 1989-1990. Fan’s style developed into its recognisable form; backdrops adapted from Italian Renaissance works which are populated by anonymous figures in dreamlike narratives. Fan enjoys playing with scale and his paintings can be both strange and humorous. Using a low-key colour palette, the artists views painting as merely an extension of the drawing so integral to his practice.

From 1990-1997, Joe returned to Aberdeen and became a Lecturer at Gray’s School of Art in Drawing and Painting. During this period, Joe also spent time as a visiting Lecturer at Cyprus College of Art, Paphos in 1994.

In 1997, Joe gave up his role as a Lecturer to pursue his own full time career as an artist. Joe continues to live and work in Aberdeen.

His latest solo exhibition was at Thackeray Gallery, 2014 and in 2016 he was a runner-up for The Lynn Painters-Stainers Prize.

Artist biography by Grampian Hospitals Art Trust, 2023.