New Spring: Jun Chen

Jun Chen's latest exhibition is a celebration of landscape and seasonal renewal, manifesting in powerful, subliminal messaging. 

New Spring is Chen’s first exhibition at Nanda\Hobbs since joining the gallery in early 2018. At its core, New Spring intends to engage and captivate the viewer with dynamic swaths of oil paint that dance over the canvas. There is an immediate compositional reference to the idea of the 'beautiful'—a key genre in the grand tradition of landscape painting. The practice of imaging the landscape extends far beyond the romantic traditions of Claude Lorrain and the energetic brushstrokes of Claude Monet. Image makers from history in all cultures have investigated, made and celebrated the natural world. Indeed, Chen owes much to his Chinese cultural heritage for the sensitivity of his mark making.

As with all paintings that are representative in subject matter, the first hurdle for the artist is to achieve a likeness. I would argue that this is a learned skill. The second task is to elevate the work to a more esoteric level, where, we as viewers feel what the artist feels. This is a harder, more poetic and intuitive task—to make a link that extends beyond the 'real' and into the other part of our cortex that feels the vision as created by the artist. It is this that is remarkable—the moment where a line tells a story, where colour impacts our mood, and where we fall in love with the extended sense of primavera. These are images that allude to the central and dynamic life force that is acknowledged throughout art history.