Red-Chroma
Chen Wenji
陈文骥
Production date
2016
Object Detail
Media
oil on aluminium panel
Measurements
89 x 120 cm
Notes
Abstract painter Chen Wenji is somewhat of an independent outlier in the field of contemporary Chinese art – his works are unlike those of his ’85 New Wave’ generation peers, many of whom are figurative painters. In their cool formalism, they are also unlike those of his fellow abstract painters, many of whom are influenced to a greater or lesser extent by expressive xieyi ink painting, or by critic/art historian Gao Minglu’s category of Yi-Pai art (a mode of art creation that embodies non-rationalist Confucian aesthetics inflected by Daoist philosophical constructs such as yin and yang). Chen Wenji creates illusions of 3 dimensions on the 2-dimensional surface of his canvas. He is interested in the binaries of reality vs illusion; playing with viewers’ perceptions he creates non-existent objects that appear extraordinarily real. In his early student days Chen was very interested in Chinese painting and its history, but at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts he also encountered western modernist painting, particularly Russian realism. As a printmaking student and, later, teacher, he made an in-depth study of colour and its properties which is evident in his paintings today. He cites David Hockney as an artist he particularly admired when he was transitioning from printmaking to painting. Chen Wenji’s paintings are a form of meticulous trompe l’oeil illusionism: slowly and patiently created – he says, ‘In my experience, there is something profound about the act of waiting’ – they repay a slow and careful look.
Accession number
2019.097