Ed Pien is inspired by the myths and traditions of both West and East. Over nearly three decades, he has created a rich œuvre whose themes provoke moral and political reflection in viewers. Emerging out of a spontaneous process, his drawings are rooted in Pien’s study of historical representations of Hell and their relation to depictions of human atrocities and the violence of war.

Ed Pien is a multidisciplinary artist based in Toronto. Pien draws on sources both Eastern and Western to create his work, including Asian ghost stories, hell scrolls, calligraphic traditions and the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Francisco Goya, creating sensual, drawing-based installations using ink and translucent paper (like Earthly Delights in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts). The spectator is invited to walk into these floor-to-ceiling environments and approach the half-human, half-animal monsters within. In his most recent body of work, Pien has replaced ink and gouache with an xacto knife in order to produce large-scale paper cuts. In the summer of 2004, he travelled to China to continue research on myths and legends found in Chinese folklore; he returned from the trip excited about a form of art that is centuries old in its tradition.