Her ‘greatest decision’: Charlotte artist explains why she took up an easel at age 45

Soon after Malu Tan’s family bought a house in Wilton, Conn., in 2002, they had to cut down a giant oak. Their mostly wooded yard had no place for their children to play.

“It was basically hollow,” said Tan, a Charlotte artist. “A tree guy said it had been eaten from the inside by carpenter ants. We cut it down, and within maybe three weeks, little saplings started to grow all over the lawn.”

You can see her version of what happened in her 50x40-inch painting, “When You Chop an Oak.”

That painting and others by Tan, an abstract expressionist, are on view at Central Piedmont Community College’s Levine campus through Dec. 18. The solo show, called ”When Nature Takes Back,” was previously at the Cato Campus.

In the painting of Tan’s Connecticut yard, the hollow trunk and saplings are a brilliant blue, and the grass is shades of magenta, burgundy and blood red.

When the family moved to Charlotte’s Ballantyne area four years ago for Tan’s husband’s job, they had to again take down trees and look for saplings. When humans are battling nature, we’re often fighting ourselves, Tan said.

Humans are an invasive species, she said. “Look at kudzu,” she said. “It’s invasive but, really, who brought it to the U.S.? Man brought it from Asia and somehow, it became invasive here. We create our own problems.”

A midlife revelation

Tan is originally from Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

“I’m Asian,” she said. “I come from a family of businessmen. Business is our focus.” The thought of making a career out of her art — something she loved and was good at it — never occurred to her until they relocated temporarily to London in 2009.

That’s where she attended the Art Academy in London. She was 45. Her classmates were half her age.

“While I was in school, I realized that all these kids — college-age kids — were going to school to be professional artists,” Tan said.

It was a revelation. “Those kids were all going to be artists — sculptors, painters, potters,” she said. “I thought: That’s really cool. By the time we returned to Connecticut in 2012, I started to take art seriously. It was the greatest decision I’ve ever made.”

Tan treats painting like a job; it is her job. She doesn’t wait for the muse to appear. She paints nearly every day, either in her home studio above the garage or in her studio at Hart Witzen Gallery on North Tryon Street.

Making her mark

No matter where Tan lives, she becomes part of the arts community. In Connecticut, her work is part of the permanent collection of The Yale New Haven Medical Center.

Her work has been exhibited far and wide, including at the Philippine Consulate in New York, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art in California and 311 Gallery in Raleigh. Her solo exhibition, “The Space Between: Color Collage Moments,” was on view there through June 26.

She’s making her mark in Charlotte, too.

Her work was shown at Sozo Gallery’s “In Bloom” exhibition in 2019, and she’s one of six emerging artists to receive a $5,000 Emerging Creators Fellowship from the Arts & Science Council this year.

Tan doesn’t think viewers can see any trace of her Asian heritage in her art. That’s not a conscious decision, though. “Even as a child, we traveled a lot,” she said. “I’ve always lived in cities. I guess that’s how I assimilated.

“I grew up in the Philippines, where there is this big colonial mentality,” she said. “We were under the U.S. government for a long time.” She suspects Filipinos have an easier time adapting to U.S. culture than some other immigrants, as American culture was imposed upon them during colonial rule.

“Originally when I came to the U.S., I don’t think I actually acknowledged (anti-Asian sentiment) that much,” she said. “So, this whole last year has been an eye opener.”

‘I paint things that are part of me’

Tan is methodical in her artistic process.

It generally starts with taking photographs or making a thumbnail sketch in a notebook of something that captures her eye. “I did a painting of the windowpane of our flat in London,” she said. “All my paintings are close to me. I paint things that are part of me.”

She usually begins with a theme. “There’s usually something I want to express,” she said, “and it’s expressed by each piece of the whole.”

When she’s ready to move to the canvas, she’ll sketch an outline, usually with charcoal, before ever dipping her brush in oil and putting it to canvas. She paints layer upon layer, sometimes scraping back some of the paint to reveal an earlier layer.

“Sometimes, I’ll post a picture of a work in progress on Instagram,” Tan said, “and ask people if they think it’s done or needs something else.”

Lifelong learner

Tan’s Instagram bio reads, in part: “A Life in Color. Ballet Student. Runner. Nature Lover. Wife. Mom.”

Ballet student? Why not? She took up art at 45.

“One day in Connecticut, I saw an adult ballet class,” she said. “I literally just walked in and asked: ‘Can I do this?’ They were very welcoming. I even started dancing in pointe shoes.

“I love ballet as an art form, as a form of exercise, a form of expression,” she said.

“All art is an expression of things. It’s part of me,” Tan said. “Even when I paint something serious, I tend to put bright colors in it. I think that’s my sensibility. I try to be positive; that’s just my personality. Whoever sees it, I hope they see some part of what I’m trying to say. I am not just painting a pretty picture. I am saying something.”

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