CYNTHIA-REEVES Presents SHEN CHEN: NEW PAINTINGS at IAP
By: BWW News Desk Oct. 03, 2014
CYNTHIA-REEVES is pleased to launch our fall program at Independent Art Projects (IAP) with an exhibition entitled Shen Chen: New Paintings, the gallery's fourth solo exhibition of Chen's work. As part of MASS MoCA's art complex, IAP is open to the public Thursday - Sunday from 11am - 6pm, and is located at 1315 Mass MoCA Way in North Adams, MA. The artist will be discussing and signing copies of his latest catalogue (available for purchase) with an event free and open to the public on Saturday, October 4 at 5pm.
Shen Chen debuts new work from his ongoing series of acrylic paintings on canvas, as well as a return to his meticulous ink painting on paper - a discipline that was the beginning of his artistic career. These showcase his signature minimalist brushwork and line painting, while hewing back to the origins of his discipline in calligraphy and ink brush drawing. Their inspiration came from a recent residency on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy, where the mountains meet the water's edge, creating a dramatic juxtaposition of fog and mountain-scape.
In his paintings, the artist's meticulous layering of color achieves resonant tonal hues, and manifests a rigorous grounding in a meditation on breath. To create his subtle ombré surfaces, Chen works with the canvas on the studio floor. He layers the paint in precisely calibrated vertical brushstrokes; the discrete horizontal lines visible on the surface are a record of where each brushstroke - and attendant breath - begins. Of this latest work -- and Chen's studio practice in general -- art critic Robert Morgan, who has studied Chen's work for a decade, writes in the artist's catalogue:
In contrast to other important Chinese artists living or who have lived in New York, Chen functions solely as a painter. He is very clear about his position. He is committed to painting as a form that gives him the space and time to do what he wants and to express what he needs (without necessarily being expressive). For Shen Chen, there is no reason to take photographs or to make installations. He has no incentive to perform or participate in media-driven spectacles that, in recent years, have seduced so many artists. He is a painter, specifically an abstract painter, intent on working with the surface, using acrylic paint the way he was trained to use ink. -- Robert Morgan, "Paintings in Memory of Time and Infinity", 2014.
Photo Credit: Shen Chen, Untitled No. 40133-0914, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 42 inches, 2013
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