His ingenuity did not go unnoticed as he later became the first Chinese artist to gain international recognition in the world of jewelry-making that has for centuries been dominated by Western artists.
Chan's works have been exhibited at prestigious fairs, such as the London Art Fair and the European Fine Art Fair in the Netherlands, as well as at important cultural institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
While his masterpiece jewelry creations were collected by China's wealthy elite and European royals, Chan hoped his creations would become available in museum collections and be a part of the shared human civilization.
In recent years, Chan has extended his study of materials, especially metal titanium, to create much bigger sculptures. He presented his first large-scale sculpture and installation exhibition, Titans: A Dialogue Between Materials, Space and Time at Fondaco Marcello in Venice, Italy. The largest piece in this collection measures 10 meters in height.
Chan's sculpture exhibition Totem is ongoing at Fondaco Marcello as part of the ongoing 59th edition of the Venice Art Biennale.
"A pioneer in using titanium for art making, Chan has released, experimented and discovered the space age metal's potential not only in jewelry but also in his large-scale sculptures," writes a review of the exhibition published on Mousse, an art magazine in Italy.
