Black Screen
Chen Yufan
陈彧凡
Production date
2011-2012
Object Detail
Media
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
180 x 600 cm (quadriptych)
Notes
Deliberately ambiguous and elusive, Chen Yufan’s minimalist paintings evoke his interest in Daoist philosophy. The mutually reciprocal, fluxing polarities the Dao – of yin and yang, light and dark, black and white, meaning and meaninglessness – are present in ‘Black Screen’ just as they are more obviously represented in his Zhuangzi series. In this quadriptych, the left and right panels consist of holes punctured or burned through the canvas at dense, precise intervals, suggesting a printed (but unreadable) text. The second and third panels in the centre are textured with ribbed, vertical markings. For Chen Yufan, the meaning is not in the image or the symbolism but in the process – creating these works allows him to empty his mind, like a Buddhist monk chanting a sutra.
Accession number
2013.115