Artist Statement
I make sculptures and installations that propose an analogy between the systems within our bodies and mechanisms of our built environment. I use materials like paper pulp, foam, clay, and wax — materials that imprint and protect, to reference forms inside the body. I transform their scale to call upon an uncanny sense of seeing something both recognizable and unidentifiable. I want audiences to experience familiar objects anew. At the core my work asks: what constitutes personhood?
For my Hunter MFA thesis exhibition, “Ripe Spoils”, I chose key materials- citrus fruits, a skull model, clay, wax, paper, wood, and plant fragments, to explore the bodily experience. Our body is a series of problems dispersed in space: gravity, digestion, regeneration, and meaning-making. Fruits traverse national boundaries effortlessly, whereas people navigate social, emotional, and political trials. I collected nearly a hundred citrus fruits past their prime, to observe their changes in appearance and scent. A sour scent can be alluring and repulsive. Sour in Chinese, 酸 (SUĀN) also means to ache. In Jenny Zhang’s book “Sour Heart”, sourness signifies a complex bond between immigrant children and parents. The fresh, dry, and cast ceramic citrus fruits in my work “Altar for Entrances and Exits'' accentuate the passage between thresholds. Placed above the gallery entrance, these fruits are only visible from underneath, creating a sacred space within a commercial setting.
Bio
Yan Cynthia Chen is a New York City based artist and educator who works primarily in sculpture and installation. Her recognizable yet unidentifiable forms evoke gestures and feelings inside the body. She transforms functional forms to draw analogies between structures of the body and the functions of architecture. Chen holds an MFA from Hunter College and a BFA in Sculpture from The Rhode Island School of Design. Chen has participated in the Bronx Museum AIM program and the Yale Norfolk Summer Residency. Chen had a solo exhibit at Olympia gallery and participated in the AIM Biennial at the Bronx Museum. She has participated in group shows at Longwood Gallery, Tappeto Volante Gallery, Assembly Room, Westbeth Gallery, and Proto Gallery.