Comprising sculptures, embroidery works and drawings, Xuefeng Chen’s practice is concerned with building ties between mythical narratives, ancestral rituals, traditional crafts, and contemporary artistic practices. Pivotal to her works, which bring to life totemic figures, deities, chimeras and hybrid beings of various sorts by means of mixed techniques, is the notion of transmission. For Chen, who grew up in a rural part of the Yunnan province of China before settling in France, the relationships between imagination and reality, the known and the unknown, chaos and cosmos are crucial components of her artistic practice. The hybrid character of the forms shaped by the artist materialise a sense of osmosis/wholeness between different species and realms, as well as between non-­‐human and human beings, with an aim of restoring a lost connection with natural elements and forces. Embodying the rich diversity of forms existing in nature, her sculptures and drawings embrace the cycle of life and death that enables the perpetuation of species, while engaging in a process of metamorphosis that allows the genesis of novel forms. Chen’s works, which are often adorned with vivid colours, additionally connect universal/primal forms that travel through ages and cultures with the colourful, imaginative universe of childhood.

 

Ǒrigǒ is a site-­‐specific installation consisting of 12 sculptures of various sizes (some of which have animated parts) that the artist has produced in the context of the exhibition Locus Solus, and an older embroidery work titled Two Moons. Displayed on the 4th floor, both on the open-­‐ air terrace and in an adjacent indoor space, Chen’s installation articulates notions of exteriority and interiority and can be experienced as a threshold between physical and symbolic worlds. Ǒrigǒ, which derivates from the Latin word “origo”, meaning “beginning”, “source” or “origin” in Latin, is based on a cosmogonic view that positions nature as a force of genesis and transformation. Chen’s body of works originate in ancestral narratives, founding myths that tell the origins of species and natural forces, the mingling of non-­‐human and human beings. Each bearing a name of their own, the 12 sculptures form a world in its own right as they come together, connecting existing and imaginary forms, building a relationship of complementarity, correspondence and harmony between natural elements and heterogeneous beings. On the other hand, playing with the proportions and scale of things, Ǒrigǒ draws attention to the infinitely small (a seed, a cell, the details of a leaf) that human eyes are unable to see and that go unnoticed in everyday life. The installation, which stages a state of infinite possibilities, invites visitors to take a journey across realms, while reflecting upon the origin, formation a and beings.

Locus Solus - Musée d'art contemporain Arter-Istanbul -Turquie - 2022

Texte originale par Selen Asen

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