YING CHEN

REPRESENTED ARTIST

Ying Chen was born in Tokyo, Japan, to Chinese parents living in Japan. She grew up and spent her early childhood in Japan until the age of seven, then spent her youth in China. Now Chen has graduated from SCAD with her bachelor's degree and is currently enrolled in the SCAD graduate photo department. Since 2018, her focus has been on photo collages. Using a collection of photos she selected for a theme, Chen aims to convey her state of mind in a deconstructed yet the whole picture.

ARTWORKS

Fragmented Series

This series title is “Fragmented”. I wanted to create an air of gloom, and negative emotions to be experienced in a photo. We go through our daily motions, often putting our emotions on the back burner without fully addressing them. In the back of our minds, those passing negative thoughts get broken and turn into monsters lurking in the shadows of our minds. I wanted to represent a moment of a psychological break, and negative emotions manifesting as a chimera-like creature in a collage. I discover my passion for creating photo collages. The series I produced at that time was mainly focused on distortion and repetition to express the chaotic thoughts I can't express in words.

Lost in transition Series

The artwork employs collage to fuse the ornate features of traditional architecture with stark modernist geometry. This duality within the piece highlights the city's journey through time, symbolizing the transformation from its historic roots to its contemporary identity. The interplay of shapes and the layering of eras challenge the viewer to consider the narrative of change and continuity in the city's evolution, emphasizing that in the midst of progress, fragments of the past persist, creating a rich tapestry of history and modernity.

Her Series

This is a photo contemporary collage project based on modern art. Greatly influenced by natural figures and artificial textures. I love to collect black and white photos of female portraits, cutting out the parts and stripping them from the original context, combining them with the abstract design figure, to get a new composition. This project is about 'she', every single piece has a unique female image, and each composition has a different character. Mysterious women are always a very attractive point to me. Ideally, behind every independent female figure, I want the audience to see a gentle but strong female image. Its basic sense is to make her seem to have life, when she smiles or looks up, every move is gentle and beautiful.

I have a recurring dream: scenery consisting of cloud filled Sky, fields of grass, and a body of water. In this foggy but colorful dream, the sky is cloudy, yet everything is brightly lit. there is a thick fog blurring my vision I cannot discern whether it is imagined or familiar scenes. I wanted to capture in photos how small flower cuttings can inspire/trigger those dreamt memories of landscapes. By composing nature figures into a photo, I wanted to represent how flower cutting can channel those dreamscapes in a photo. Stitch-like lines were added to make a person question if what they are seeing is paper paper-cutting collage, hoping to replicate a dream-like feel through making viewers question the photos.