Ying Kit Chan

Professor Department of Fine Arts
Director of the Hite Art Institute

Research: Contemporary practices in drawing • Digital media and new media studies • Contemporary art issues • Cross cultural and critical theories • Chinese arts theory and criticism • Ethics, aesthetics and semiotics • Analytic and Continental aesthetics • Sustainability and environmental ethics

 Professor Ying Kit Chan received his BFA from the University of Oklahoma (1981) and MFA from the University of Cincinnati (1983). From 2003 to 2005, he attended the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee (Switzerland) and Paris, and studied with some of the world's most visionary thinkers including the late Jacques Derrida and Jean Baudrillard, as well as American intellectuals Judith Butler and Donna Haraway.

For over three decades, Professor Chan has been exhibiting his art work in over 200 exhibitions in the United States as well as in Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Korea, Japan, England, Poland, Taiwan and Portugal. Professor Chan has received several public awards and fellowships including two Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Visual Arts Fellowships (1994 and 2002), a National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Arts Federation Visual Arts Fellowship (1992) and an Urban Council Fine Arts Award at the Hong Kong Contemporary Art Biennial (1977).

Professor Chan was the Conference Chair of the first Foundation in Art: Theory and Education (FATE) national conference (1986) and later served as the President of FATE (1995-97). He also served as the Chair of Studio Sessions for the SECAC/MACAA Joint Conference in 2000, and was a member of the Professional Practices Committee of College Art Association of America (2003-06).

At the University of Louisville, Professor Chan was the Head of the Studio Programs at the Hite Art Institute from 1997 to 2010, and served as the Chairperson of the Department of Fine Arts and the Director of the Hite Art Institute from January 2011 to June 2016. Currently he is an affiliate faculty member of the Asian Studies program, the Social Change program, the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research and the Center for Asian Democracy. He is a member of the Humanities PhD Program Steering Committee and the University Sustainability Education and Research Committee.