Bernadette Phan | Photo Bernadette Phan

Bernadette Phan, a Vietnamese-Canadian painter, currently exhibits a series of drawings titled “Lili and the Migratory Influences” at the Bob Prittie Library in Burnaby. With this project, Phan wants to pay homage to her late aunt Lili, who shaped and influenced her greatly.

While Phan was mostly raised in Canada, she has quite a diverse background. Born in Cambodia to Vietnamese parents who left their home before the war, Phan lived in France for a while before her family relocated to Quebec when she was three years old. Eventually, the family moved to the Canadian West Coast. Her aunt Lili, however, remained in Paris, and chose the French capital as her city of adoption.

“I still go back to Paris regularly; I try to be there at least once a year. I still have close friends there that are like family,” says Phan.

Even though she left the country at an early age, Phan, whose mother tongue is French, has kept close ties with both France and her aunt. She has always been close to Lili, despite the geographical distance. After high school, the artist lived in Paris with Lili for three months and helped out at Éditions Gallimard, one of the biggest French publishing houses, where her aunt worked. The two women engaged in lively discussions about art, ideas and ethics and Lili regularly nurtured her niece with new books.

Love of books is at the heart of the exhibition | Photo Bernadette Phan

Books became art

Lili was one of the most influential people in her life, particularly regarding her passion for reading.

“I owe my love for books to her,” Phan says. “First I was shaped by books, then by art.”

The project at the Burnaby library honours the artist’s late aunt and consists of drawings of her books that Phan brought back from Paris; the project is meant to display a portrait of her aunt. While the project is comprised of over 150 drawings in total, Phan chose only a few selected works from “Lili and the Migratory Influences” that are currently exhibited at the Bob Prittie Library.

“I had a specific desire to acknowledge her,” Phan says.

She chose to draw still life as an elegy to Lili because it allowed her to pay tribute without putting her aunt on the spot.

“That’s the beauty of still life – it’s anonymous but still capable of representing people. The drawings contain many innuendos only people close to me understand,” Phan explains.

While many contemporary artists work with digital media, Phan prefers the traditional way: paint, pencil and paper.

“It’s just more hands-on. You come to the same result, but faster,” says Phan.

The time she spends in the studio painting is both her greatest reward and her biggest challenge.

A passion for painting

Phan’s enthusiasm for painting and drawing emerged at an early age, and she vividly remembers a significant childhood moment.

“I was given a paint-by-numbers of a running horse for Christmas when we lived in Quebec,” she says. “That’s when I thought I might become an artist.”

Her mother was against it.

“She feared I wouldn’t make any money,” says Phan.

But she studied Fine Arts anyway – first at Montreal’s Concordia University, and then in Philadelphia, where she received her MFA degree in printmaking from Temple University. Now, she returns to printmaking only sporadically; painting and drawing are her passion.

“I love the dialogue, the sharing of culture and of experience that is passed on from one generation to the next,” says Phan.

For more information please visit: www.burnaby.ca/Things-To-Do/Arts-and-Heritage/Burnaby-Art-Gallery/Exhibitions/Bernadette-Phan–Lili-and-the-Migratory-Influences.html