The artist CHEN Zequan is valued for his large "hitting art". He has not drawn any sketches for his creation, and only by a series of improvised intuitive actions to complete the paintings, sometimes it feels more like an athletic sport or a competition. Color evolved and rhythmic changed in the action of repeatedly hitting the canvas, forcing the viewer's eyes to constantly search for and experience the speed, explosion, and infinite inner expansion in the paintings that brought by the actions of hitting, scraping, and the patchy color blocks. His painting is no longer an aesthetic design, but a carrier of human movement dominated by his heart; Painting is no longer to express emotion through image or form, but becomes a direct record of the artist's emotion. His unique style has the characteristics of freedom, unrestrained, ignoring the objective and space delimitation, reflecting the mentality and actions of young people in China's reform and opening up to break away from tradition and pursue freedom.
Zequan's creation comes from his love for color and constant experimentation, and also are deeply influenced by campus life, nature, science, and music. He loves music and studies violin and percussion. These diverse sources of creativity make his artistic works full of rich colors, vivid rhythms, strong actions, explosive brushstrokes, and unique artistic language to interpret his emotions, perceptions, and understanding of the present. The Jumping brushstrokes on the painting convey speed and strength. This is a grand meeting of color blocks and lines, a burst of emotions deep in the artist's soul. They interact, collide, and blend with colors to create an empathetic visual rhythm, as if enjoying an intense symphony or dance.
CHEN Zequan's paintings are a process of seeking pleasure, hugely emotional expression, and venting in behavioral movements. From the experiment of the combination, infiltration, and flow of water and color, to the unexpected patterns formed by the self-drying of the painting, he gained infinite joy, and then to the passionate expression and hitting of color, his emotions poured out. When viewers see the visual effect of painting which have been hit, they can even personally feel the power and speed of the hitting. Sometimes they can also see broken tool fragments wrapped in color quietly resting on the canvas, as if telling the viewers about the passionate creative behavior that once occurred here, while feeling the artist's exuberant pleasure during creation. Every time we stand in front of these huge paintings and quietly appreciate them, we can always feel the joy and emotional release of the artist's creation, which is in opposition to the academic pressure and internal competition of students under the current Chinese education system. The artist has achieved a unified solution, and viewers can also be affirmed by the scale and quantity of his paintings.
The brushstrokes come from all over directions in Zequan's paintings, and skim over the canvas, leaving behind strong explosive and impactful color blocks and lines, presenting the vibrant and unstoppable pace of China-made and China-speed today. The strong colors are vividly expressed in the actions of painting, and this feeling comes from the rapid development of today's society. The widespread application of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and 5G is changing our way of work and life. The contradiction between the process of modernization and traditional concepts of life creates harmony in the painting, reflecting the pace and rhythm of the times. The lines in the painting imply the network of relationships in human society, pointing towards the painting to generate a strong sense of speed and direction, while also serving as a medium for the viewers to enter the painting and a bridge for perceiving it.
Zequan's paintings are known for color blocks and lines with impactful and explosive power. Strength, dynamism, emotion, and color blend together in his artistic painting, outlining the artist's complex and unified emotional state. Each color block and line may seem casual, but they are full of infinite inner expansion, creating a balanced and harmonious visual effect. This is a dialogue between the canvas and the artist, recording the artist's emotions directly on the canvas through behavioral actions and color media. When the viewers face the paintings, they will be introduced into a realm of empathy, freely interpreting, feeling, contemplating, and finding their own spiritual resonance.
Zequan constantly practices and explores in the field of painting, recording his sincere emotions towards all things through a series of actions such as color splashing, prop hitting, and swiping. At the same time, the paintings also convey infinite life. Viewers cannot help but imagine the scene of painting, unrestricted, unrestrained and passionate. They also linked some paintings with the scenery of the city after the hurricane ravaged, and various visual effects were full of speed and passion; Some visual effects look like the majestic momentum of thousands of horses galloping on the grassland from a high altitude; A more pleasant visual effect is undoubtedly the morning sunlight shining through the forest onto the golden fallen leaves; There are also some images that can immerse the viewer in the vastness of the universe……. His paintings attempt to convey emotional memories of all things in the universe through the passage of time and the construction of space, as well as the sense of layers and cohesion in his paintings. In the eyes of artists, everything has emotions and life, and is recorded on canvas through actions, weaving symphonic chapters of life with colors.
2022 July 20th - 27th, solo exhibition of “Flying Childhood - Chen Zequan Artwork Show” was hold in the Xiamen Art Museum.
2023 Sep. 30th - Oct. 5th solo exhibition of “Vivid Variations - The Chromatic Universe within a Young Mind” was hold in the Beijing Normal University Jingshi Art Museum.
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