Currently new Assistant professor in NC state University, College of Design, Jan-Ru Wan was assistant professor at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C for four years. Jan-Ru Wan ('96 MFA) is an artist-educator acquiring an international reputation in the fiber-arts field.

Eighteen years ago, driven by her desire to search for more advanced training in art, she attended the School of Art Institute of Chicago. In 1993, she received honorable mention for my BFA exhibition from the entire school. And then she received her MFA at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee at 1996, where she received Layton Special Achievement Award from the university, competing with all graduate students in all fields.

In the 15 years period since receiving her MFA, she has participated in 20 solo exhibitions and 40 group exhibitions, and award for three major artist residencies; both national and international.

Wan’s work has been widely exhibited at numerous galleries including. Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, Linekona Gallery, Academy Art Center, University of Hwaii Honolulu, Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design, Emerge Gallery, Greenville, NC; Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville, TN; Burapha University, Thailand; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA; the Durham Arts Council, Durham, NC; and the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art, Greensboro, NC; Fayetteville Museum of Art, Fayetteville, NC; and the Constance Gallery, Graceland University, Lamoni, Iowa.

Wan is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including North Carolina Fellowship Grant 2008, 2006 Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD) Award from University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a residency at Burapha University, Thailand; a North Carolina Arts Council Residency Center Grant to Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; and grants from the Orange County Arts Commission and the Durham Arts Council.

Artist Statement by Jan-Ru Wan

One’s culture is imprinted in its mind, and this imprint determines how to perceive things. Through perception, this imprint evolves in every second and every place, refining itself to produce a new experience, and ultimately a new culture. Born in Taiwan, but educated in USA, I have seen many differences between the two places in terms of art, philosophy, politics, and society, but I have also seen that the basic human desires and needs do not drastically differ. These commonalities become the foundation to build my search through my works.

From constructing garment forms to creating body sculptures, and then creating the space embracing the body, I have always dealt with the human body and its perceptions in my work. The body is born in nature and constructed by culture, the dualism of the self and the external. The constant process of reciprocal exchange between these two builds up the world.

By manipulating common objects I intend to re-contextualize and embed them in different kinds of senses and create a new avenue. I have always emphasized on the contrast between the interior and exterior of my work: harshness vs. softness; tension vs. freedom; free floating vs. measuring; compulsive energy vs. imperturbable silence. This gives rise to the simultaneous existence of repulsion and compulsion.

The multiplicity of small images, details, and objects that make up the whole reveal the individual and the universal simultaneously. Through this repetition of form and notion, the discrepancy between materials is wedded alchemically to produce a new harmony-- the balance of the chaotic, the sublime and the beautiful.