I am always simultaneously thinking about my environment, the architecture around me, text, paint and sculpture. Using mixed media to capture fleeting moments and feelings of nostalgia; using language and art to create bold environments with text that connects with people and images which captivate.
In my latest work I am exploring the relationship between art and language, art and life through using my interests and memories. My Degree Show installation includes a large painted mural in an environment with a decorated plinth which displays my ‘Word Cubes’- plaster cubes hand carved with Korean letters.
Using typography in forms of the English and Korean language; text from the fleeting present, from poems and music lyrics, which I arrange within a series of contexts- compositional arrangements and environments. I am experimenting with ambiguity, mixing texts, creating a whole picture with both languages, rather than two separate words or images within a frame. Unless you understand English and Korean, the meanings can be lost but I enjoy the resulting curiosity and seeing the artwork as an image, rather than text; the viewer can make their own connection. I want to convey my love of the Korean language and culture without being offensive, I want to continue to learn and understand. I feel this interest is an innate feeling, like it chose me.
The theme of opposites is connected to my choice of texts and how my work is viewed, those that see the familiar or foreign, readable or distorted. Opposite meanings of text in opposite mediums; wall murals being temporary, the fleeting moments captured in a graffiti tag, in opposition with prints and sculpture which are repetitions and continuous, trying to grasp at the memories and retrace my steps. This sentimental aspect is hidden within the meanings of the text, then hidden in the distorted image, but clear in the effort to carve each letter into a plaster cube and paint a huge amount of space.
There are a series of framing devices within my work. I create narratives made within and working together with the environment, and the context of my other works. I work within a research project of my life. I want to create dramatic focal points within made environments; to collate my research and memories to create an atmosphere which frames the image. Emotions extracted from the environment mixes with how spectators can look and see the image, or read it.
Jingfei Chen | Fine Art
