10 Questions with Chang Chen
Before working as an art teacher to children based in Vancouver, Canada, Cheryl Chen had finished studying art craft and graphic design areas back in China in the 1990s. After the short-term working experience for a newspaper publisher in Vancouver in 2004, she decided to go back to school and finished a diploma program in Graphic Design in 2012 in order to continue her career after maternity leave. However, after graduating from the Art Institute of Vancouver, her career route changed by chance, thanks to an internship to teach art in an education center. Now, she has been working in fine arts for almost ten years, and she feels the urgency and the need to upgrade herself again. After finishing the first year of the BFA program at the University of British Columbia (UBC), she decided to go to the University of Arts in London (UAL) to take a master’s degree in fine art in Printmaking to seek more opportunities to explore the professional area.
As an experienced artist, Cheryl is willing to open her mind to the scope of the world of visual art, holding speculative and optimistic attitudes toward the unknown challenges. She values the effective communication between the artwork and the viewers and the connection between artists and the world. She believes that expressing oneself and making voices for the social currencies are indispensable as an existence in this Anthropocene.
Chang Chen Portrait
ARTIST STATEMENT
Cheryl Chen's creative work includes a variety of explorations in the fine art area, such as drawing, painting, and installation. She believes that interdisciplinary practices are beneficial and facilitate constructing and expressing the concepts in multi-dimensional ways. With her background in graphic design, effective visual communication between the viewers and artists is always the top priority and the core of her creation. Not only do the representational objects tell the story, but the emotions and the ambiance evoke an immersive conversation that leads to the resonance.
In the drawing series, The Visitor, Cheryl hammers the drawing skills and the connotation of the delivery boxes to build up a particular scenario that reflects a mood under the uncommon days of the pandemic. Using different gradations of ink, the scenes, such as the front yard, corridor, and backyard, were painted in monotone to emphasize the gloomy atmosphere that was pervasive in people's lives and communities under quarantine policies. Through the details of the places depicted by charcoals, the story was created in a realistic way to enable viewers to immerse into the spots in person. The most prominent contrast effects were highlighted by the only color that was applied to the balloon. On the monochromatic and brownish background, the bright blue quite markedly contrasts with the dismal and cheerless mood, evoking an unexpected stimulation.
The installation, The Lost Memory, reflects Cheryl's own childhood, impacted by the political upheaval in China during the1960-70s. As a result of the Cultural Revolution, her parents never had the chance to witness her childhood until she was 16. The lack of parental affection led to the lack of the placidity of a home. The utilizing of family photos on the walls of a home-like structure tells what she experienced in her earlier years, highlighting the child's irreparable loss of the most important memories, which play a crucial role in adulthood. Sadly, Cheryl doesn't remember how the memories appeared, and over time, she realized that it wasn't normal for everyone else in this generation. What she can do is to reveal the destruction and the trauma from the past that never stopped haunting her.
By manipulating a wide range of materials, such as foam board and plastic sheets to create a home, Cheryl merely creates a symbol representing its fragility and the speciosity, which contrasts to a family's substantial meanings. Furthermore, the destructed frame of the house is isolated on a deserted land formed with sea salt, which demonstrates the opposite of nutrient and vitality. The process of creating this sculpture is also a journey of tracing back to the time when Cheryl grew up and what has been left behind in her life. Moreover, the desire to express oneself causes an awakening and poses questions that confuse many of us, such as where life comes and goes. Thus, this installation strikes a chord with all who empathize with her.
The Lost Memory, Foam board, photo plastic sheet, sea salt, 28x30x7 inch, 2019 © Chang Chen
INTERVIEW
First of all, introduce yourself to our readers. Could you tell us a little more about your background and how did you begin making art?
Before an art studio for children based in Vancouver, Canada, I finished studying arts and crafts and graphic design back in China in the 1990s. After a short-term working experience for a newspaper publisher in Vancouver in 2004, I decided to go back to school and finish a diploma program in Graphic Design in 2012, in order to continue my career after maternity leave. However, after graduating from the Art Institute of Vancouver, my career route changed by accepting an internship offer as an art teacher in an education center. Now, I have been working as a self-employed art educator for almost ten years. I have always had the desire to investigate more in the Fine Art area and use it to bring out messages to communicate with others.
Some say art is for those who have something to say. To me, it was the point of departure to create voices with visual languages to resonate with others. Next year, I will take a MA degree in Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Arts in London to explore this specific field as well as obtaining more opportunities to embed my concepts into practices to strike a chord with spectators.
How would you define yourself as an artist? And what makes you unique?
Frankly, in the long-term studying and working experiences as a designer before my 40s, I never positioned myself as an artist until one day I realized that art was my strength and my approach to express myself and narrate my life experiences and what my concerns are. With these awakenings in my mind, I started to develop conceptual ideas and translated them into my artworks. When the feedback from viewers demonstrated the original intentions of my works, I believed that I could structure a channel or build up a bridge to connect with the world. To me, this is the definition of an "artist", and I can define myself with this title eventually.
Generally, everyone in this world is unique in terms of our distinctive ways of being built. My uniqueness in my work emerges from my belief that art serves an important function in society, providing enjoyment and consistently posing questions. I did not evade the struggles and the trauma that had left the marks in the past. Instead, I tried to evoke the scrutiny of the meanings of personal growth, community, history, and politics. Thanks to the inherent acuity, I've always cared about human transformation, both mentally and physically, and the meaning behind it. Given this, the intentions of anchoring the reflection of the individual and societal problems into disciplinary rendering skills to demonstrate scenes of memories or circumstances of our existence on this planet have become the priority of my creations.
The Lost Memory (detail), Foam board, photo plastic sheet, sea salt, 28x30x7 inch, 2019 © Chang Chen
Your works are delicate pieces, but at the same time, they reflect upon profound themes, such as your childhood and the impact the experiences you did as a child have on your life. How can you balance such powerful themes with the delicacy of the works?
Sometimes, the strength is in a disguise of fragility. I believe that the most powerful visual impact is generated when minimal language is used to convey the most plentiful messages. I credit my skills gained in the graphic design field long ago.
Through "The Lost Memory", I attempted to recapture my childhood under the Cultural Revolution, in the point of view of an underage victim from the political upheaval in China, instead of the views of others and the external environment, which kept ignoring the damages and the irreparable loss to our whole generation. In the minimalistic form of the installation, the overall sense of my childhood, such as isolation, helplessness, and the lack of familial affection that led to the insufficient growth afterwards, is displayed as a monochromatic spectacle, which implicates a place that is extinct of nutrient and vitality. It creates an analogy with the cemetery and the irreversible psychic trauma. The emptiness tells the story and so does the colorlessness. The key to balancing the concept and the form is that I believe that the emotion the artwork contains is influential. Thus, there is no need to distract it by adding unnecessary information.
How much planning goes into each work, and where do you find inspiration?
As an artist who always has insight into human emotions and keenly captures the trace ties into social occurrences, the marks of memories and the wounds on both body and spirit shouldn't be receded or desalinated without humanistic scrutiny. These were the initial motivations that prompted me to reveal and face the inner sense, thus bridging the past and present. For both artworks, the intuition of how to present these two conceptual ideas effectively kicked in rapidly after the themes were nailed. It is interesting to review them and discover the personal perception about the opposite directions, the attitudes toward the past and reality.
Anne Libby's sculptures, the Green Diaphragm 2020, impressed me with her unique way of utilizing polyester padding to mimic a waver illusion as if the glass curtain wall is in heat. By resembling the mirage, the installation implicates the fleetingness and apprehension of modernity. This inspired me to explore more on employing materials with their own denotation and connotation, and it was where the idea of using express boxes for The Visitor bred. The inspiration for the form of The Lost Memory derived from Michael Jantzen's sculptures, The Modular House Pavilion, and Motoi Yamamoto's orientational concept of sea salt. From the former artist, the destruction of houses gave me a lead to reexamine the significance of a "home", while the latter artist inspired me with our similar cultural notions about life and death.
The Visitor (detail), Charcoal, express boxes, acrylic, 8x2 ft, 2021 © Chang Chen
The Visitor (detail), Charcoal, express boxes, acrylic, 8x2 ft, 2021 © Chang Chen
Your series "The Visitor" is more strictly related to the quarantine experience due to the Covid-19 pandemic. You used an Amazon box as your canvas; how did you come up with this idea? And what messages do you want to convey to the viewers?
The pandemic broke out beyond anyone could expect. During the whole year of isolation measures, I believe people's lives have been impacted and changed. The alienation that the quarantine policy caused can not be ignored. The inspiration for "The Visitor" derived from a fortuitous encounter in 2020, when I saw a blue balloon flew with wind above my front yard. I believed that the balloon was, at that moment, paying me a visit as a friend I had never met in such an unprecedented time. I decided to trace it and record the moments of its stay.
One of the lifestyle changes that occurred was that online shopping became a dominant consumption pattern, which made the express boxes, such as the Amazon's, indispensable parts of our lives. The boxes played a vital role in keeping connection with the outer world in the uncommon days. With anchoring my conceptual idea of a sequence of illustrations on the surface of Amazon boxes, the visual effect of this drawing series finally structures a melancholic ambiance that reflects the ubiquitous psychological status in Covid-19.
What is the most challenging part of your work? And how do you incorporate and mix all these elements together?
The most challenging part of my work is the decision-making process. I believe that it is a very common issue that perplexes many artists. The truth is that every time of creation is an individual combat, confronting uncertainties and self-doubt throughout the whole process is inevitable. To my understanding, the key that leads to effective communication for an artwork is to consider two ways, both objective and subjective, which means an artist is a creator as well as an audience at the same time. The messages I attempt to bring out must be the information that viewers can interpret or receive successfully; otherwise, I may choose to drop the ideas I come up with. It is more important for my artwork to resonate with viewers than to enjoy the unilateral expression.
The Visitor, Charcoal, express boxes, acrylic, 8x2 ft, 2021 © Chang Chen
The Visitor (detail), Charcoal, express boxes, acrylic, 8x2 ft, 2021 © Chang Chen
Is there a theme or technique you would like to experiment with?
Next year, I will take the MA program in Printmaking in London. This is an area that I have never examined, and I have a passion for exploring this unknown territory and innovatively creating artworks based on traditional techniques and frontier concepts.
What do you think of digital exhibitions and presentations? Are you experimenting with these, or are you into more traditional ways of presenting your work, like physical exhibitions in galleries and museums?
Digital exhibitions seem to be a tendency that has gradually become mainstream accepted by both art curators and artists, especially under the circumstance of the pandemic. From my point of view, the virtual exhibitions simplify the process of installing artworks as well as saving lots of troubles that participating physical exhibitions can not avoid, such as the issues that occur during the transporting, etc. The most advantageous part is that more artists have opportunities to have their artworks exposed in public because of the convenience of online curations. Luckily, my artworks were selected by another digital exhibition that emphasized narrative and representational depictions in July. 2020. I believe that every artist cherishes the chance to communicate with audiences through their artwork, introducing and sharing the stories and messages where possible, which can be fulfilled more frequently in this digital era.
Of course, there is no reason to resist participating in international physical exhibitions if there is a chance. It is also a valuable experience to try the traditional way of presenting my works. I believe that it will be a new chapter and leave marks in my artistic life.
What do you wish to accomplish this year, both in terms of career goals and personal life?
This year is a gap year between my BFA and MA studies. I'm planning to prep myself with some general perceptions about printmaking since it's the trans-disciplinary major I chose to take in 2022. The most challenging exploration is that the value of printmaking can be extended to unlimited ways of creations. How to think out of the box without being restrained by the conventional methods is the homework I need to keep working on.
Finally, what are you working on right now? Anything exciting you would like to tell our readers?
Recently, the subject of feminism ignited my enthusiasm to create voices for the status of women around the world. From the recently issued pro-birth policy in China to Texas' ban on abortions in Sep. 2021, women have been utilized as an alleviation mechanism to mitigate the crisis as if a switch can be turned on and off arbitrarily. However, the objectification of women systematically exists and never attracts extensive attention and re-examination. As I discussed in previous questions about my attention on how the social occurrences affect people's living conditions both mentally and physically, the goals of my creations are always around the concerns on these aspects. I take creating thought-provoking artwork as my duty, just like what Michael Armitage said, "Art is an agent of social change".
