Nan Ke Gallery will present Wencun Chen's solo exhibition Make a Sentence on 24th December 2023. The exhibition will feature a range of works from Wencun's artistic explorations, which focus on experimenting with the power of words and demonstrate the artist's process of expanding the boundaries of creativity and expression.
Wencun Chen
Fancy a Cuppa? , 2023
Metal plate, oil colour, UV printing
100w x 32.5h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
In Wencun's works, the element of words repeatedly appears in various corners of different art media. These words are often fragmented, residing in the viewer's vision in the form of "glimpses", as if passing by roadside slogans in a speeding car, leaving a strong but ambiguous fragmentary impression of the moment when the words fall on the retina. The "language" is disassembled into basic components consisting of individual words, which are then reorganised to form a new language system of artistic expression. With the help of words, an element that can be "uncontrollably understood", the artist takes a strong stance and occupies the viewer with his artistic connotations.
Wencun Chen
E is for engine, 2023
Oil on canvas
180w x 120h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
For the artist, creation is his way of "speaking". Sometimes words are like riddles, helping him to create gaps for rest or exploration through abstraction and ambiguity in the figurative real world in pursuit of "meaning", and to obtain a space for abstract expression. In the process of experimentation, Wencun gradually constructed his artistic language system. He integrates fragmented words through this system, trying to make them into a complete landscape of "make sense". Half of them are words with innate meanings, and the other half are different forms of artistic language, such as painting and video.
Wencun Chen
What, 2020
Graphite, screen print, canvas, solid oil, spray paint, acrylic
180w x 230h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
However, "make sense" is not the standard answer that the artist is looking for. To further dismantle the phrase, "sense" can refer not only to "reason" and "meaning", but also to "sensation". This is exactly what the artist seeks: when using the language of art to create a sentence, "understanding" is not limited to the reading of words. Rather, it is a multi-sensory interaction, an empathy that links consciousness and intuition.
Wencun Chen
Manual, 2023
Oil on canvas, graphite, screen printed
120w x 180h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
Like the characters that make up language, the artist has always focused on the "basic units" that build matter like molecules. In an early work, Bill Bricks, the artist printed uncut, translucent banknote patterns on oiled paper and sealed them on the wall with wooden planks from a broken old warehouse door. The repetition of the banknotes as a basic unit, as if repeating words, recalls the famous repetition of 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy' in The Shining, an act of repressed rigidity and its undercurrent of impending catharsis. The human desire for wealth is visualised in the work, and its effect or destruction on the spirit becomes apparent through the language system.
Wencun Chen
Bill Bricks, 2018
Lithography, unframed
90w x 60h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
In subsequent works, the artist's interest in assembly has continued, and the forms of expression have expanded from simple repetition to the assembly of different parts, seemingly echoing the expansion of the artist's linguistic system and ability to use language. In how to get a work done, Wencun borrows from the classic Ikea brand and its representative blue color, and extends the core feature of Ikea furniture that requires self-assembly.
The whole object is disassembled into functional parts and given the function of a process as if it were a management concept, making the procedures of the social system as visible as the assembly of furniture. The complete message that the work attempts to present is also like a sentence, composed of the words of the paintings of the parts, which unfolds and is transmitted to the viewer like a dialogue.
Photos of Wencun Chen's work How to get a work done (part), image courtesy of the artist.
For Wencun, his position as a university teacher keeps him in a vigorous state of learning and progress in his creative endeavors. In his view, we are in a "process" full of possibilities in this era. New technologies and artistic languages are constantly emerging, filling in the gaps of pure language and giving artists the opportunity to express themselves more freely.
Wittgenstein's theory of "linguistic play" asserts that language is learned through play-like interactions. Language is used by each user to give meaning to his or her own understanding, and there is no "essentialist" absolute meaning. For Chen Wencun, creating his own artistic language system is the same. It renews, expands, and iterates in the course of artistic practice, and the creation of each work of art is like the "making of a sentence," with an emphasis on the process of creation. In the process of art creation, one constantly learns and fills up one's own language bank, creating works like informative statements, communicating with the viewer, and listening to the echoes.
Wencun Chen
Entertain, 2022
Oil on canvas, graphite, garment labels
120w x 70h cm
© Courtesy of the artist
In the exhibition "Make a Sentence", language and artistic expression are homologous, both possessing the power and vitality to create communication. This power is built on the foundation of words, phrases, and short sentences, and is complemented by creative artistic expression. Chen Wenchun's works constantly question the boundaries of two-dimensionality, seeking multi-dimensional, sensory experiences and responses with the power of dialogue-like spirituality. Here, roughness or refinement, ambiguity or straightforwardness, all become a spiral process as if learning a language, attracting people to walk in and dialogue; or read and observe.
Text by Roxane Fu
