Jonathan Tang (b. 1996) was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. Initially trained as a classical guitarist, he later transitioned to oil painting. Drawing on psychoanalysis and post-structuralist theory, his work examines the fractures of subjectivity and traces what resists articulation.

Rooted in his own estranged experiences of suburban life, Tang’s paintings reveal both a reverence for the natural world and a subtle critique of contemporary experience—for its immediacy, its atomization of social life, and its framing of the self as an ongoing act of curation.

His images open up a space for projection—where memory, emotion, and significance emerge through the act of looking. Working from observation as a subversive counterpoint to inherited conventions, he merges the grammar of representation with intuitive mark-making to articulate a visual language attuned to impermanence, alienation, and the ambiguities of being.

Education

2018 Bachelors of Music Therapy, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON.

Selected Exhibitions

2024 Fourth Annual Juried Show of Visual Arts, Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga, ON.
All You Can Eat, Northern Contemporary, Toronto, ON.
2022 National Open Juried Exhibition, Providence Art Club, Providence, RI.
2020 16th Annual Small Works Exhibition, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH.
2019 5 by 7 Show, Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. Woodstock, NY.

Art Fairs and Auctions

2025 Art with Heart Auction for Casey House (upcoming), The Carlu, Toronto, ON.
2025 Artist Project Art Fair, Better Living Centre, Exhibition Place, Toronto, ON.

Residencies, Awards, and Recognition

2025 Jackson’s Art Prize (Longlist), London, UK.
2024 NG Creative Art Residency, Maussane-les-Alpilles, France.
2023 Blue Cactus Art Residency, Sant Quinti de Mediona, Spain.

Teaching

2023 Fundamentals of Landscape Painting, Button Factory Arts, Kitchener, ON.
Fundamentals of Landscape Painting Workshop, Homer Watson Gallery & House, Kitchener, ON.
2022 Fundamentals of Landscape Painting Workshop, Homer Watson Gallery & House, Kitchener, ON.