About | i-yen-chen

I-Yen Chen

Born 1990 Taipei, currently based in Freiburg, Germany.

We are soft, but so is our world.
As an artist, Chen is taken and moved by both the fragility of lives and the instability of the environment around us. Through her art, Chen explores the relationship between people and the spaces they inhabit, mapping underlying and neglected “landscapes:” these are terrains of emotion, politics, and memory, as well as earth. Through multi-media and installations, she seeks to present landscapes not as eternal or objective, but as a reflection of human memory and dreams. Chen believes that it is through the unending transformation of this multi-layered space that we settle in, and find affinity with, the world around us. Though she uses an array of media, the fragility and ruggedness of ceramics match well with her current creative approach. Her recent practice both deepens and transforms earlier concerns: borders, senses, and the “metaphorical landscape.” Beginning with a visual experience mesmerized by surface reflections, Chen explores deep into the borders of everyday life created through each tactile experience and its relationship to the visual. Thus, she aims to investigate a dependent yet conflicting relationship between humans and their surroundings.

Since 2016, Chen has been working as a professional artist between Melbourne, Australia and Taipei, Taiwan.

In 2021, Chen relocated to Freiburg, Germany.

EDUCATION

2016 Master of Contemporary Art
Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne
2014 Bachelor of Arts
History department, National Taiwan University

EXHIBITIONS

2020 Young Art Kaohsiung, Pier-2 Art Center, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 
ART TAIPEI 2020, Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1, Taipei, Taiwan
The Art of Transformation, National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, Nantou, Taiwan
2019 Crossing Pain and Intimate Memories, Firstdraft, Sydney, Australia
A State of Obscurity, XPO, Enschede, the Netherlands
The Union Art Collection: Recent acquisitions 2016-18, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2018 RIFTS: Particulate Matter, Testing Ground, Melbourne, Australia
Shall We Have Some Tea…, May Tr.IPP Event, Transit Dance Studio, Melbourne, Australia
Point Cook Unknown, Point Cook Pop Up Park Pilot, Melbourne, Australia
2017 When Lands Float like Memory, Saltwater Community Center, Point Cook, Melbourne, Australia
Moreland Summer Show: Noel Counihan Commemorative Award, Counihan Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Shall We Have Some Tea…, The Ownership Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
In the Creases of Time, Red Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Changing Places, Linden New Art, Melbourne, Australia
2016 VCA Art Masters Exhibition, 2016, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia
The Union Collection: Recent Acquisitions 2012-2016, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
蝕- nibble, erosion, eclipse, Fringe Festival, Chinese Museum, Melbourne, Australia
None of us are in here, VCA Student Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
流水環石 Flowing Water, Bordered Stones, George Paton Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
2015 The 2015 Mary & Lou Senini Student Art Award exhibition, McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Joy to the Other World, VCA Student Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
Within/ Without, VCA Student Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
A Hundred Years of Landscape, Out-door exhibition, Jia-Yi, Taiwan

ARTIST RESIDENCY

2019 ARE (Artist Residency Enschede), Enschede, Netherland, April- June 2019
2018 Cloud Forest Collective Artist in Residence, October 2018 to May 2019
2017 Saltwater Artist in Residence - Wyndham Art Spaces, July to September, 2017
High school Art Mentoring and Education Program, Point Cook High school, Coordinated by University of Melbourne and VCA

AWARDS & COLLECTION

2017 Noel Counihan Commemorative Award, Finalist, Melbourne
2016 Nomination of the Visual Art Award, Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2016
(https://melbournefringe.com.au/news/story/visual-art-and-words-and-ideas-award-nominees-announced)
Private Collection
George Paton Gallery Collection
UMSU Creative Arts Grant, 2016
2015 The 2015 Mary & Lou Senini Student Art Award for Ceramics, Finalist, Melbourne

PUBLICATION & INTERVIEW

2018 Exhibition Review by Jessica Williams on Art+Australia online:
http://www.artandaustralia.com/online/discursions/utterance-sugar-and-plastics
2017 Exhibition report by the LIMINAL Magazine
https://www.liminalmag.com/blog/shall-we
ABC interview about exhibition “Shall we have some tea…” with Jonathan Green
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/history-and-culture-in-a-cup-of-tea/8652570
2016 Exhibition reports by the Melbourne Chinese Museum:
http://chinesemuseum.com.au/meet-artists-behind-%E8%9D%95%EF%BC%8Dnibble-erosion-eclipse/
http://chinesemuseum.com.au/opening-party-%E8%9D%95%EF%BC%8Dnibble-erosion-eclipse/
http://chinesemuseum.com.au/%E8%9D%95%EF%BC%8Dnibble-erosion-eclipse-extended-31-october/
Triple J interview with Stacy Gougoulis
ABC interview with Hilary Harper
RRR Radio interview with Richard Watts
Vision Australia Phone interview : www.rphadelaide.org.au/links/VE.mp3
http://www.rphadelaide.org.au/links/FP.mp3

COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES

2107 Mapping Point Cook, Melbourne
Studio Open day, Brunswick, Melbourne
2016 The Sensory Tour, George Paton Gallery, Chinese Museum, Melbourne
2014 The Dining Table in the Field, Yi-Lan, Hua-Lian, Jia-Yi, Taiwan
Series of artistic cooperations with an agricultural social enterprise.
2013 Eyes of the Tribe, Taitung, Taiwan
Interactive Photography program designed with children in Wulu aboriginal tribe.