“I realise more and more how the stories I choose to tell through my works have a lot to do with my difficulties with tradition, both in form and subject matter. On one hand, we celebrate traditions as markers for our identity and as a way of honouring our value systems, lineage and ancestry; on the other hand, traditions are also limitations, structures, and barriers. They are gatekeepers for what is currently acceptable.”
– Yanyun Chen
Yanyun Chen (1986, born and based in Singapore) investigates how the body bears marks of culture and legacy through drawing, new media and installation. This is deepened by an interest in the rhythms of transience and decay, which she explores through portrayals of human and botanical forms.
Chen’s formal training in the medium of charcoal shaped earlier works such as Chasing Flowers (2014–2015), a series of still-life drawings capturing the atmosphere of tension as floral arrangements transition from full bloom to gradual death. Since 2018, her investigations have expanded to include themes such as cultural wounds, notions of nudity, and conditions of intergenerational trauma. Scars that write us (2019) is an installation that takes the keloid scar as its point of reference—a genetic feature that runs in Chen’s family. Comprising gold-leafed reliefs of scars on steel plates, delicate figures rendered in charcoal, as well as a series of writings, the work explores the physical and psychological experience of bearing scars.
Chen obtained her BFA in Digital Animation from the School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2009, and her MA in Communications and PhD in Philosophy, Art and Critical Theory from the European Graduate School, Saas Fee in 2014 and 2018 respectively.
Notable exhibitions include Translations: Afro-Asian Poetics (2024), The Institutum, Singapore; Boston Cyberarts Waveforms (2023), Museum of Science, Boston; Clouds (2020), CICA Museum, Gyeonggi; FICTION NON FICTION (2019), Cultural Affairs Bureau, Macau; 2219: Futures Imagined (2019), ArtScience Museum, Singapore; and Presidents Young Talents (2018), Singapore Art Museum. The artist has also participated in major international festivals including SGIFF 33 (2022), 33rd Singapore International Film Festival; Butterflies Frolicking on the Mud (2021), 2nd Thailand Biennale, Korat; and PIFF (2020), 5th Prague International Indie Film Festival.
Chen had her residency at the STPI Workshop in 2021, resulting in the exhibition Departures | New Releases: Yanyun Chen, Hong Zhu An, Prabhavathi Meppayil (2024).
