City Voices Interview with Jenny Chan

Jenny Chan was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Chinatown, New York City to a large Chinese family. From the age of 5 years old Jenny knew that she wanted to be an artist. Jenny used art as a tool for healing and recovery whenever she was sad or sick and continues to believe that art has the power to heal both the mind and body.

Using vibrant color and clean lines, Jenny’s medium of choice colored pencil and magic markers; she draws her creative inspiration from family and friends. A substantial theme in Jenny’s body of work features couples and groups of community and focuses on the concept of friendship and sisterhood.

While Jenny is most recognized for her ongoing series depicting stylishly dressed sisters. Jenny also creates vivid and magical images of dolls, princesses, ballerinas, and flowers, to name some other iconography in her work.

In 2018, Jenny was invited to participate in the NYC Mural Arts community mural project in Brooklyn, NY. The finished mural was installed at PS 24 in October 2019. Over the last several years, Jenny has also pursued her passion for photography, focusing on New York City landscapes.

Jenny is invited to exhibit her work several times yearly at galleries throughout New York. Jenny’s first show was in 1997 at a New York University student art show. She has since gone on to be included in shows at the School of Visual Arts (SVA,2017), the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 2018), and Featured in Fountain House Gallery shows since 2016; her latest exhibits were in (2019, 2020, 2021) and most recently her first one-woman show at the Baltic Street Community Resource & Wellness Center (2022).