CHEN JIAO solo exhibtion at Art Scene Beijing
15 - 27 May, 2007

Chen Jiao was selected by Gerard Goodrow (director of Art Cologne, one of the world’s most important art expositions) and Jeff Kelley (curator of the Asian Art Museum in the USA) as the top young, emerging artist in China in 2006 at the Dragonair Emerging Chinese Artist Awards.

Chen Jiao’s works were described by Gerard Goodrow as “extremely professional”. And the Art Cologne director said, “I love the details that the artist has included on purpose for when you look at the pieces up close, such as the numbers for calculation of dimensions.” Being a young Chinese artist trained at one of China’s top art academies, Chen Jiao’s memories of childhood are intrinsically linked to industry and urban development. She grew up surrounded by large factories and industrial buildings. These buildings represent many of Chen’s most special memories: Her paintings of them are a visual record of the experiences of her youth, as well as the lives and associated history of the countless others who have lived and worked in and around the buildings.

Chen’s canvases are devoid of any other information save for the building itself; the artist is able to balance the void of the single colour background, sometimes splashed paint and combined with empty canvas, juxtaposed with the solid, hard, three-dimensional aspects of the architecture. Chen purposely gives her paintings a “sketch”-like, architectural quality, and she applies a special technique to the solid walls, giving them texture and a look of aging and decay. The structures in Chen Jiao’s paintings are often placed centrally, the buildings are projected dramatically forward as if they were floating in infinite space. The light, faded colour and old buildings create a sense of harmony and order, as if everything is as it should be. Chen Jiao’s newest work portrays nature in a similar way, such as a portrayal of a tree.

Evocative of the past, present and future, Chen Jiao’s atmospheric paintings point confidently towards a future of potential and hope.