South Bound Print

"My artistic practice is a window into my personal narrative, one of heritage, documentation, and experimentation. My journey as an artist started at a young age, and some of my earliest memories are of being with my father and grandfather in their studios. Drawing inspiration and acknowledging the indebtedness to traditional Chinese painting, papercut, and calligraphy, I simultaneously pay homage and deconstruct these disciplines, transforming them into my own aesthetic. Upon close inspection, my works contain myriad visual clues and reference points in an abstract cacophony of movement, depth, surface, and color. I experiment with spatial depth and surface, exploring various forms to convey an experience. From a broader examination, however, each element in my work is meant to be explicit yet also part of a larger context, in an ongoing tension where they individually vie for attention, but ultimately concede that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A dichotomy of ideas, an equilibrium in expression. My works explore Here and There, they reference the two poles of culture and influence that have shaped me as an artist. For any first generation immigrant, this is the mutually shared experience of place and culture, where both bleed into each other and color our journeys. My work refers to the eclectic places and moments from my story – urban sprawl defined by buildings, roads, vehicles, people, and perpetual energy, in contrast against open rural spaces, diversity of natural life, and a sense of timelessness. My work is an intimate and deeply personal exercise, and through which I’m sharing but also perpetually shaping my perspective of our world." Sijia Chen focuses on painting, photography, installation and public art. She received her MFA from Tyler School of Art in 2011 and her BFA from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 2009. Her recent works include the SWA installation and tea tree sculptures at Jieyang Chaoshan International Airport. She has shown her work in solo exhibitions at Art Museum of Shantou University, China; Fei Gallery, Guangzhou, China; South Bay Contemporary, CA; Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL; Temple Contemporary, Philadelphia, PA, and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, U.S. and China. Her work is collected by numerous institutions, among them the Inside Out Museum in Beijing, Guangdong Art Museum, Shantou University, and the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts.