Sijia Chen

"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 an...

2011 Master of Fine Arts, Painting, Drawing and Sculpture Department, Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
2010 Printmaking Apprentice Training Program, The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2009 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting Department, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, China

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2016 Art and Sustainability, Net Impact Los Angeles, Culver City, CA
2014 Sijia Chen, South Bay Contemporary, San Pedro, CA
2014 Playground, Fei Gallery, Guangzhou , China
2013 Home-New Work by Sijia Chen, Art Museum of Shantou University, Guangzhou, China
2011 Wander- Land, Temple University Gallery, Tyler School of Art, TempleUniversity, Philadelphia, PA
2011 Wet Paint Two: Sijia Chen, Zhou B. Art Center, Chicago, IL

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019 Escapism from Los Angeles, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA
2019 From Out of the Western Sky, Ekkisens Gallery, Reykjavík, Iceland
2018 Conversation, Red Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
2018 Asian Wind and Finnish Woods, Gallery Kookos, Helsinki, Finland
2018 Dragnet, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2018 KÀN: The Art of Looking, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Odd Convergences, Korean Culture Center, Los Angeles, CA
2018...