SHEN CHEN STATEMENT 2006

Repeating the same techniques or same methods within an image is central to my concept of the making of paintings. The process of making a painting is as important as a completed painting itself. Simplifying my images, which often appear as strokes or lines, and purifying colors into mostly black and white are part of an artistic ideology that reflects my personal philosophical beliefs and my Chinese culture background.

My recent paintings, acrylic on canvas, indicate the development of my changing style. I use self-made wide brushes and work on canvases that lie on the floor. I paint images that often show overlapping brushstrokes repeating themselves vertically; the image consists of a field of mystical lines and patterns in gray with foggy tones. A range of textures seems to float to the surface of the canvas, with marks that look more like rubbings, drawn lines, or wood-block prints, than brushstrokes. The lines or patterns are distant to each other in the depth beyond the flat surface, and are dissolved downward or upward into a transparent space that energizes the view. Many of the compositions resemble traditional Chinese ink painting: the use of black (“yong mo”) as a primary color and the use of emptiness (“liu bai”) as inner space are central to my esthetic. I try to recreate the beauty and the mysterious power of Chinese ink paintings even though I work with Western materials and formats.

Inevitably, my personal experiences, consisting of a physical, emotional, and spiritual journey traveling between the East and the West, have been incorporated into a more poetic and abstract style. I sometimes think that my work aspires to involve an abstract style with a philosophical notion of contradictions, known in statements such as “less is more, full is empty—this is my way of making art.