Sandra Yuen has been an artist for most of her adult life, turning to art as a way to heal from mental illness after being diagnosed at age 15. Largely a self-taught artist and writer, she has been practicing for 18 years and, decades ago, earned a Fine Arts Diploma from Langara College.
In the past two years, she developed a precise, neat, and organized style of work consisting of house portraits focused on the disappearing city of Vancouver as old buildings are replaced. Recently, she went through a change and her art exploded into abstraction influenced by abstract expressionism and contemporary artists. She is inspired by colour, emotion, intuitive thought process, and the subconscious mind.
Sandra Yuen has received the Courage to Come Back Award and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for overcoming severe adversity and giving back to the community. Under the pen name Sandra Yuen MacKay, she wrote a memoir My Schizophrenic Life: The Road to Recovery from Mental Illness, a humorous novel Chop Shtick, and From New York to Vancouver: Stories on the Fly.
