Taking a deeper look to peer beyond the beauty
Chinese artist Chen Chunmu uses various media to express thoughts and reflections on such social issues as environmental protection, urbanization and social development — and he wants viewers to look beyond the beauty of his works.
His solo show, Look Beyond What We See, at Beijing’s Hongkun Museum of Fine Art, displays over 20 works he has produced in the past three years, including oil paintings, installations and mixed-media works.
“We’re attracted to beautiful things. But we seldom explore what’s beneath the beauty,” the Beijing-based artist says.
In his Classic of Grasses and Woods, Chen paints brightly colored flowers and worms on three bed boards to portray migrant workers’ dreams.
Their wishes all come true when they’re dreaming. But they’re far away when they awake to live in cities where they struggle, says Chen, who moved to Beijing in 2007.
Chen was born in a village in FujiCritic an province’s Anxi, where farmers made their livings growing tea.
Most people have moved to cities, leaving the elderly, children and tumbledown houses.
Chen often weaves village life into his works. Mushrooms, flowers and worms appear frequently in his art. He spent his childhood picking mushrooms and playing in the woods.
His installation My Weapon deploys fire spears people in his hometown use during celebrations. Villagers fill the tips with gunpowder to create loud bangs to beseech the gods.
Chen views the tradition as a waste of money and a source of air pollution.
“People waste lots of money on it, and it makes no sense. They still believe in it. It’s very sad,” the 37-year-old says.
Huang Du says Chen finds his own style in the fertile soil and folk art of his hometown, combining plants, animals, wildness and simplicity into his paintings.
“It’s difficult to define what kind of artist he is. He uses various elements in his works, such as tea stains, bed sheets, neon lights and wood,” says Zhao Mengyuan, executive director of Hongkun Museum of Fine Art, a private museum focusing on works by modern and contemporary Chinese artists.
Zhao is a longtime friend of Chen. She says he’s a man of few words. But Chen expresses himself in his works. Most of Chen’s pieces are accompanied by essay-like poems, either displayed separately or incorporated into his works.
He often writes prose that pops to his head. Sometimes the words read like modern poetry. Sometimes they’re nonsense, he explains.
This also goes for the titles of his works, such as Beyond a Relationship With You and Spring Follows Winter.
“What I paint and what I write is not important. It’s the audiences’ interpretations that matter,” he says.