Eternal Night

Yun Chen

Nov 29, 2014 ~ Dec 31

Chen Yun is obsessed with life.

For many years, she has been spared no effort to weave lines that are more and more sophisticated, to depict images that are more and more fascinating, so that to collect life forms of any kind in her ultimate kingdom. There, branches stretch like palms, tender shoots curls as the shape of eggs, long legs stand like trees, female face shadows in the blossoms; There are huge fishtails, and eyes, eyes, eyes …… On her canvas, any line could grow, breed, twist and combine freely. Everything is organic, and everything is alive.

The fairy tale – like colour has always been her weapon to produce the kaleidoscope. In the series Eden, she tried to control the boundless imagination and restrain her ambition to establish a magic kingdom, and she finally managed to make a balance among refreshing, beautiful and fancy. But what she desires is far more than this. In her latest project Eternal Night, not only has she challenged to present the biggest scale ever, but also she has bravely chosen to leave out the appearance of colour this time, and return to the pure world of lines and simply examine her ability to draw them vividly with a computer mouse.

Yes, a computer mouse. For long, CHEN Yun has been drawing with this. Using merely the tool of “pen” in the AI software, she clicks one joint dot after another, linking one wave and another, which forms one curve and another. Outside the screen, the mouse moves inch by inch; on the screen the lines walk and fly. That is how those miracle lines grow naturally and smoothly bit by bit.

In fact, due to the lack of stroke physically, drawing with computer could hardly go beyond its two dimensional appearance. But CHEN’s world of lines makes it in multiple. With considerable delicacy and patience, she draws those lines of creature separately but makes them interact with each other. The thickness of these piled lines gains her works a sense of time and space. Meanwhile, in this project, she liberates her lines outside the paper and screens to the whole space of gallery. The huge scale of her work finally offers a place to contain the ambition, persistence, courage and delicacy that have humbly lived in her skinny body for long and demonstrates the great energy for beyond her former appearance as sweet and fresh.

Life could always be found beneath the surface of death, while the eternal night is the cradle of new forms. It is the desire of reproduce and reborn of life itself gathers this incredible energy. Line could be alive too. Thanks to CHEN Yun’s hands, the simple truth of two dots form a line could transform to a world that is super sophisticated and charming. It is the obsession with life that makes her the fairy of lines.