Chen
Experimental ink work
I used to express contemporary life in the form of ink painting on Xuan paper. In common with the dilemma faced by most artists attempting to renew Chinese painting, I have spared no effort in seeking contemporaneity in ink painting, but the works still struggle to catch up with global contemporary art.
Therefore, in the last three months I have tried many experiments based on ink.
In Ink & Shakespeare(2020) I have integrated ink, representing Chinese culture, with fragments of literary texts representing British culture, and made a plaster in the form of a mineral water bottle that I use daily. After that, The Ink Diary (2020-2021)is a project of transforming empty bottles from recycling bins into plaster and recording my memories with ink paintings on them. In these works, the ink becomes a symbol representing my identity, while the ink paintings serve as an approach for me to write my diary.
I was inspired by Wang Tiande's three-dimensional ink installation, Chen Shaoxiong's ink videos, and Ai Weiwei's performance art in terms of the forms in which the works were displayed. Therefore, my final work is presented in three different ways: installation, video and performance.
First, I arranged an installation in my kitchen, a social space of daily life and interaction, with plaster objects made of paper texts and ink. New Year: The Dinning Table (2021) consists of a dark and deserted dining area with the sound of New Year's fireworks in the background.
Second, I made use of multimedia technology to bring the ink paintings into fashion. Ink Diary: Snow Night(2020) is an installation of ink painting on plaster fragments juxtaposed with a video of a moment. Ink Diary: Parades (2020) and Ink Diary: New Year (2021) are also ink pieces documenting fond memories of my time in Birmingham, which were recreated as animated videos from my three-dimensional ink paintings.
Finally, Broken City (2021) is a work in which I incorporate performance and ink painting. The video shows a plaster bottle with an ink painting of Church of St Martin in Birmingham being smashed.
