Slip of the Tongue, 2022, oil on canvas, 146 by 110 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Fondation Croÿ-Roeulx, Brussels.
Chen Ching-Yuan’s paintings adapt Western styles of realism and romanticism to offer a subjective vision of the world. Blurring the boundaries of time, space, and identity, Chen casts a quiet gaze on fragmented moments of daily life.
Most of the paintings presented in the Taipei Biennial 2023 were created in 2021 and 2022, a period when Chen was living under strict confinement in Paris due to the pandemic. From his isolated living space, he paid attention to the small details of architecture and the subtle changes of sunlight on empty streets. Connected to the wider world via the internet, Chen also started studying images of mass protests and acts of civil disobedience that he found online. He focused his attention on small objects depicted in these images, such as bricks, branches, and trees. In works from the Blocks and The Limbs series (both 2021), Chen portrays these quotidian materials; stripped of apparent context, they somehow remain charged with ambiguous meaning. The piles of inert bricks serve as emblems of loss and collapse, but they also appear as hopeful embodiments of the potential to rebuild.
Chen uses a somber color palette dominated by browns and oranges to reflect his attenuated encounters with the city. In the series Sand bag and Propaganda (both 2022), human figures are depicted with blurry faces, their expressions obscure or seemingly devoid of emotion. The figures’ solemn gestures and motionless poses highlight the tension between the group and individual, conveying a certain uncanny collective sensibility.
