Kit-Keung Kan

Kit-Keung Kan was born in 1943 in Panyu, Guangdong, China. Kan moved to the United States to attend graduate school in 1968, and eventually earning a PhD in physics in 1975.

Inspired by visits to Niagara Falls and Great Falls Park, Kan began combining traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy with Western abstraction techniques to develop his own unique style of painting with ink and watercolor on rice paper.

“The rapids and falls in these two places made a strong impression on me. I found that the traditional techniques of painting water in Chinese painting is not enough to express the energy of these flows of water.”

“It was ingrained in my background in Chinese literature and art that nature occupies the same place as God as in Western culture. Western culture concentrates on the human and finds nature passive. However, Oriental culture finds human activities and emotions too transient. I paint landscape to project my ideals of the order of things.”

Kan has spent a career studying matter and how it moves through space. Years of working in physics has informed his work in art, bridging scientific observation with artistic expression.

His work is collected by Hong Kong Museum of Art, Chung Chi College, the University of Hong Kong, International Monetary Fund, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Embassy in Moscow and many private and corporate collectors.