Chen Zhe - HANGZHOU TRIENNIAL OF FIBER ART

Chen Zhe

Chen Zhe

China

Chen Zhe (b.1989, Beijing) received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Her works has been exhibited at Lillehammer Art Museum, Norway (2022); UCCA Dune, Qinhuangdao (2021); Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020); Plug In ICA, Canada (2020); Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2020); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (2019); White Rabbit Gallery, Australia (2019); the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Australia (2018); Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Japan (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong, China (2018); OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen (2018); Guangzhou Photo Triennial, Guangzhou (2017); Anren Biennale, Chengdu (2017); CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017); the 11th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai (2016); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); University of Toronto Art Centre, Canada (2014); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013); Fotohof, Austria (2012); Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (2011) and more.

Chen Zhe’s practice is often rooted in self-reflection, which expands and engages with the universal experience of life. Her subjects are often inherently paradoxical, such as the body that can simultaneously experience pain and relief (The Bearable & Bees), the nebulous zone where day turns into night (Towards Evenings: Six Chapters), and the life that vacillates between impermanence and eternity (A Slow Remembering of a Long Forgetting). Springing from and expanding on her photographic work, Chen’s recent projects focus on the expressive potential of temporality and light in different mediums and environments. Her projects tend to develop organically over the span of several years, with works that annotate each other as they unravel, and present an ongoing process of research and discovery.

Study of a Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Archival pigmented inkjet prints with handwriting

85 × 45 × 10 cm each, 3 in total

2016

Rilke's poem Evening (Abend) depicts the state of trance that is brought on by experiencing dusk. The artist's fascination with the poem's truthful revelation of those disquiet feelings from the onset of the evening and her bewilderment of the last sentence of the verse, “One moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star", prompted her to ask the questions: Why would life shift between a stone and a star? And how is it related to dusk?

Having compared the poem to its translations, the artist focused on a series of directional words while referring to a diagram of the constellation. At last, a child’s game serendipitously made her realize that distant stars can grow from the earth, and heavy stones can hang in the sky. Near and far, heavy and light, up and down, expansive and restrained, as different as they may seem, they are the same. The triptych format of this presentation restores and resonates with the gradual process of cognition in three steps: the collation of the text, the encapsulation of ideas, and the unexpected encounter of the image.

Study of a Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Archival pigmented inkjet prints with handwriting

85 × 45 × 10 cm each, 3 in total

2016

Rilke's poem Evening (Abend) depicts the state of trance that is brought on by experiencing dusk. The artist's fascination with the poem's truthful revelation of those disquiet feelings from the onset of the evening and her bewilderment of the last sentence of the verse, “One moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star", prompted her to ask the questions: Why would life shift between a stone and a star? And how is it related to dusk?

Having compared the poem to its translations, the artist focused on a series of directional words while referring to a diagram of the constellation. At last, a child’s game serendipitously made her realize that distant stars can grow from the earth, and heavy stones can hang in the sky. Near and far, heavy and light, up and down, expansive and restrained, as different as they may seem, they are the same. The triptych format of this presentation restores and resonates with the gradual process of cognition in three steps: the collation of the text, the encapsulation of ideas, and the unexpected encounter of the image.

Study of a Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Archival pigmented inkjet prints with handwriting

85 × 45 × 10 cm each, 3 in total

2016

Rilke's poem Evening (Abend) depicts the state of trance that is brought on by experiencing dusk. The artist's fascination with the poem's truthful revelation of those disquiet feelings from the onset of the evening and her bewilderment of the last sentence of the verse, “One moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star", prompted her to ask the questions: Why would life shift between a stone and a star? And how is it related to dusk?

Having compared the poem to its translations, the artist focused on a series of directional words while referring to a diagram of the constellation. At last, a child’s game serendipitously made her realize that distant stars can grow from the earth, and heavy stones can hang in the sky. Near and far, heavy and light, up and down, expansive and restrained, as different as they may seem, they are the same. The triptych format of this presentation restores and resonates with the gradual process of cognition in three steps: the collation of the text, the encapsulation of ideas, and the unexpected encounter of the image.

The Nearest Labyrinth to the Sky II

Wool, mixed silk

280 × 210 × 2cm

2020

Juxtaposing the biological (the pattern of cranial sutures) with the astrological (the natal chart), the artist responds to the interpretation of our relationship with the universe in mystical doctrines with her own exploration of the relationship between body and mind. The cranial sutures, which are flexible during infancy, would gradually fuse as the body grows and leave behind a unique pattern on the skull, just like the natal chart that records the position of the stars at the moment of one’s birth. These maps are born out of our first breath; they contain the original elements of our life’s stories, and they develop with us through time (as the cranial sutures close and the energy of the stars is activated). The mystery of this inner duality makes it hard to comprehend until we have completed our life’s journey. Until that moment (if it’s not too late), the maps will always be above us: carved into the flesh and blood of our skull, hanging in the starlit sky.
In The Nearest Labyrinth to the Sky, the artist reconstructs flattened images of animal skulls with wool and mixed silk to create an undulating map of life: the hollow sutures are river gorges, the shiny skins are mountain peaks, the crimson veins are fresh trails, the grey streaks are ancient lakes. As we close our eyes, they form an invisible path to the depth of our consciousness. When we stand up, they are the nearest labyrinth to the sky above our head.