CHEN QIN

“Mangrove has the same characteristics as the person I aspire to be.”

– Chen Qin

Chen Qin grew up in Fujian, where luxuriant and humid mangroves are a common woody plant community in the coastal areas of southern Fujian. In the estuarine harbors permeated with a hot, salty atmosphere, mangroves develop extensive root systems and dense canopies to withstand the harsh intertidal environment submerged by seawater. The slender roots of the mangroves are like its limbs, clawing into the mudflats, providing habitats for aquatic creatures beneath the forest — this resilient and vigorous plant is like an island, self-healing and renewing every day. Chen Qin’s works in this exhibition have stepped out of the previous indoor space, and the artist’s perception of the power of natural life is transformed into the thick and overflowing volume and lines in her paintings, while the female bodily experience also forms a subtle contrast and connection with the cyclical growth of plants.

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In Bouquet, two women with tanned skin and well-defined muscle lines are absorbed in their actions with their eyes closed. The lake blue “bouquets” they hold up are free from the constraints of flower form, growing intensely, overflowing with their own beauty, swaying in the wind like mangrove tree tops floating on the surface of the sea at high tide. Chen Qin’s expression of the power of the female body mingles with the environment: endless are the stretches and tangles of lines, which dance freely on the canvas as visible forms of force. The twin, repeated or symmetrical female figures bring a regular balance that neutralizes the entanglement of forces in the background. At first, they are the roles of mother and daughter: mother and daughter, bound by blood, naturally become the most direct mirror reference, and the artist completes the self-subject construction in the self-view based on the differences of life and the mutual recognition of women. Later, this repetition evolves into a simulation of the state of women’s discourse being ceded and the struggle for space for expression - “If, as a woman, she equalled Nature, then, then both as general and as particular woman she should be Nature, free and fierce. ...... They simply dance their joy, uttering themselves over and over again in ecstasy and dell.” (Sandra M.Gilbert and Susan Gubar)

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Having majored in sculpture, Chen Qin’s oil paintings were all created after she gave birth to her daughter, and the mixed emotions of the dynamic mother-daughter relationship were sorted out after she became a mother. After her daughter was born, Chen Qin’s time inevitably became fragmented. Like Ruth Asawa’s choice of wire, for Chen Qin, oil painting is a medium that is easier to revitalize interrupted creations than sculpture in terms of materiality. She prefers to use tiny brushes to make delicate depictions — the process of painting is thus slowed down and stretched into a time that belongs only to her. While painting, Chen Qin ruminates on the subtle emotions of her childhood and her mother, embracing her identity as both “mother” and “daughter. In Braiding Hair and Tangled Braids, Chen Qin’s dense, lustrous hair is genetically passed down to her daughter, whose hair is knotted into a thick braid under her mother’s hands, just like the rich and tangled roots of the mangrove plant. Chen Qin’s mother specializes in the use of the sewing machine, where the cold stainless steel needles pierce the fabric while bringing about new stitching and creations. These are both labor and expression of love of women in the family, reflecting the soft and strong contradictory relationship between mother and daughter - love and bondage, attachment and confrontation, contradicting each other but unable to separate. These emotions permeate each other, and as time passes and identities change, they move from mutual temptation and conflict to final reconciliation and integration. These daily points of entry in Chen Qin’s works may seem to be considered small and insignificant, but the vitality and delicate emotions flowing through them are full of those moments of silent communication, secret empathy, and sharing of perceptions in the similar and unrepeatable paths of women’s lives.

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Mangroves are viviparous plants: the young plants initially hang long from the mother plant, then lower between the tangled roots, and float away with the tide when the seawater surges back. The plants are silent, slow, and expand tenaciously with an unyielding attitude, just like the extension and vitality of the female body. Chen Qin’s creations, which start from the life experience of being a mother, gradually transition to women’s cognition of their own gender and identity, as well as the agency underneath. Together, they present a more real, concrete, intimate, and complex emotional connection, releasing vitality and its hidden inner subversive power. Starting from an embodied female perspective, this exploration touches a broader spectrum — a story about the questioning of the ontology of life, and how the closed binary relationship is felt and broken.