In China, where female artists are underrepresented, this artist is an exception. Inspired by icons whose flaws he highlights or photographs that question him, he opens up.
filigree in dreamy and colorful canvases,
discover at the Perrotin Gallery in Paris.
What if it was 21’s Tamara de Lempicka?e century? In France, we will discover Chen Ke in a monograph exhibition at Galerie Perrotin *. It is known, exhibited and collected abroad. The artist was born forty-five years ago in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, a region of mountains over 7,000 meters high, which is summed up by a saying: “The road to Sichuan is more difficult than the climb. heaven Chen Ke has his father as a guardian shadow. A teacher of traditional Chinese painting, he introduced her to artistic practice without restricting it. A mirror relationship, about which Chen Ke says: “He’s ambiguous. Constructive, because I have his artistic sensibility, and a little controversial, because controversial. He, who studied oil painting at the Chongqing Academy of Fine Arts, tackled this story of transmission through a series of paintings and installations. The real deal is talking to dad. Yuz Museum, Shanghai, 2018. An exhibition inspired by his daily conversations in the workshop where his father served as a model.
Sensitive consciousness
Another central figure in his childhood, his grandmother, a scholar, kindergarten director, who taught him the poetry of the Song Dynasty (960-1279) and taught him the secret garden, the interior of life, the importance of having a room. own Is this why Chen Ke mainly paints women? Or is it because in China, even after MeToo, there is still a dichotomy in the place of women? “Chinese society has made huge progress in terms of gender equality. Women can take on any role in the working world. On the other hand, in the private sector it is too traditional. As if there really are two spaces in China. Chen Ke, like Antigone, wants everything, immediately. To be an artist and a mother, even if this experience draws a line in her life before and after. “My interest in femininity, feminism began while studying at the Beaux-Arts. I am reading second gender By Simone de Beauvoir. But the theoretical concepts were abstract. The experience of motherhood had a profound effect on me. I was no longer in theory, but in the experience of the body. Sensitive exposure of the difference between the sexes and the status of women. » Intrigued by female artists such as Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Sophie Calle and Georgia O’Keefe, Chen Ke began her practice by portraying a little girl. In the 2000s, when opposition figure Ai Weiwei was still living in Beijing, visitors to the 798 Art Space in the Dashanzi district could spot the little girl’s paintings on the gallery walls alongside contemporary stars. art by Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang or Zeng Fanzhi.
Intimate theatricality
Since then, Chen Ke, who lives in an artist village near Beijing’s airport, has continued to paint, this time of women. Working on photographs since 2012, the pivotal year of her daughter’s birth, she has reinterpreted art figures such as Frida Kahlo, cinema such as Marilyn Monroe, or design as in her Bauhaus period. Black and white photos that he colors with his heavy palette. Artist and curator Gilles Gasparina reveals three keys to his work: appropriation, subjectivity, theatricality. “He takes existing images to transform them. An appropriation that doesn’t fit the American scene of the 1980s, the Pictures Generation, gave a speech about the art world. He is the opposite. He expresses his story, his emotional state. It’s always subjective. She projects herself into these young women. The issue of coloring is interesting. Using black and white images, he creates an effect of derealization through the choice of colors. There is a lyrical side, a kind of strangeness. The last point. it dramatizes bodies in space. And like in the theater, his portraits are a play on a mask, a lie that tells the truth, an art of transformation…” Through this gallery of women, Chen Ke reveals her self-portrait.
1955, New York, 29 years old, 2016
“This is a 2016 work from the series Dream Dew. I came across a photo album and this image immediately caught my attention. Marilyn’s physical appearance is so different from other iconic photos. I wanted to know who he was and started researching. I realized that it is infinitely complicated. Behind the sexy, seductive star with a sunny figure, I discovered Norma Jeane, the shadow of this sun. A broken man with wounds, scars, trauma. This gap between the happy, optimistic character and the other side of the coin reinforced my idea that we all wear masks. We have social behavior and intimate. It was Marilyn’s childhood and depression that interested me. There was a sentence in this album where he said that he is a man who dares to dream and that his dreams are more intense than others’ dreams. However, the phonetic translation of the first syllable of Monroe in Chinese means to dream. I had a connection in my mind between the translation of her name and this very beautiful woman who is relaxing after a long shoot watching the sunset. There is calmness, tranquility, a sense of relaxation. »
1962, Los Angeles, 36 years old, 2016
“This image is taken from a film made at the end of his life. We see a sad and even depressed Meryl. It is this fragility, this vulnerability that has inspired me. Monroe’s first character is said to mean a dream. But the second syllable, the second Chinese character of his name, means dew, dewdrop. As if his last name contained on one side the American dream of cinema, Hollywood, America, the collective imagination, and on the other hand, a drop of dew, this fleeting beauty seen in the morning. However, in Chinese and Eastern aesthetics, there is this idea of the beauty of the ephemeral. It’s a magical thing that comes and goes. The fleeting light of morning beauty is an important thing. This is what I wanted to convey with this oil painting. »
Bauhaus Gal N°26, in 2023
“This painting is part of my latest work on the Bauhaus. It’s a portrait of a woman dreaming while the world around her falls victim to madness, darkness… It’s like a frozen frame that stops this surrounding madness. This idea of stopping is something important to me. For the artist that I am, painting is a stop in itself. He seizes the moment. I created this picture during Covid. At first, the epidemic was limited to the Wuhan region. This is a very important time for China. Because the state had claimed control of the epidemic, which then passed through Beijing and so on. We were in collective hysteria, widespread anxiety. People were violently looting the shops. There were children, elderly people in the house, anxiety was very strong. This picture served as an antidote to the threat of death, the disorder we were in. It’s a break, a silence to think about what’s next, to find a point of connection between you and nature. »
Bauhaus Gal No. 12, 2021
“This painting was exhibited at a solo exhibition in Perotin, Shanghai. It is a very large format, inspired by a photo of four students together. Here, too, it was a chance discovery of a photo album in a bookstore that was the impetus for a series I’m continuing. What is going on between these four Bauhaus students? What delicate relationship do they have with each other? We do not understand their hand gestures. It’s like a puzzle. It can be said that this group portrait of four independent women is a symbol. Looking back at the Bauhaus, I was stunned, shocked by the distortion in which so many women participated and the few names that history remembered. However, while they still lived under male domination, they had something masculine in their appearance and behavior. In this sense, they were avant-garde and resembled modern women. The women of this movement announced the liberation of women in the 20se century. I was also interested in the Bauhaus utopia. The world that is ordered by reason, logic, strictness. There is musicality in it. »
* “Bauhaus Gal – Theater”, from October 14, 2023 to January 13, 2024, at Galerie Perrotin, Paris. perrotin.com:
Source: Le Figaro
