Temporary Construction 6
Chen Yujun
陈彧君
Production date
2014
Object Detail
Media
ink, collage and acrylic on paper
Measurements
142 x 199 cm
Notes
The works in the Temporary Construction series of 2011-2014 are a development from Chen’s earlier Temporary Home body of work. His preoccupation with the impermanent nature of home, the severing of human connections and the erasure of the past that is the modern condition, is evident throughout these works, which can almost be read as a continuing narrative of loss and memory. Boundaries between past and present, imagination and reality are his subjects — the elusive nature of memory is conveyed through the physicality of his mark-making, with paint, ink and collage on handmade paper, sometimes incorporating family photographs. The works evoke the ramshackle vernacular architecture of buildings that have been added to many times to accommodate generations of families. They are presented in heavy metal frames designed by the artist to resemble doors and windows, and intended to rust, thus emphasising the passage of time. When brought together in the gallery, these works create engaging and immersive physical spaces, nostalgic and evocative. The memories are specific to a time and place — Chen’s childhood in his hometown — yet they speak to a more universal longing. ‘What is home?’ Chen asks, for diasporic populations in a time of ‘human flow’ across the globe. Chen Yujun deals with slippages of time and space that collapse past and present together, in fleeting images that may be interpreted in different ways by different viewers, connected as we all are by our experience of modernity in a world that increasingly focuses on virtual rather than physical connectedness.
Accession number
2016.171