Yu-Chun
Chen
"We join
spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay
into pot
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood
for a house
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with
being
but non-being is what we use"
Chinese philosopher
Lao Tzu, 500 BC.
I was brought
up under the Chinese culture in Taiwan and then had my artistic
educations in Italy and the Netherlands. The eastern and the western
culture come to a confluence in me and consequently come into my
work. The circular and the linear, the introvert and the extrovert,
the tranquil and the active come together. I feel like I belong
to the group of people who bear witness to the “globalization”
of culture and to the increasing number of lives being shaped by
global migration and displacement. My way of seeing, and ways of
making work, have been shaped by these diverse culture crossings
and subsequently cannot be reduced to one, unadulterated origin.
In my recent work, I intend to interpret my eastern origin, together
with the western culture that I am nourished with, to attribute
both cultures through my hands into the jewellery work, into something
visual and tactile. It has to do with the senses and sentiments
. By using various materials, my interest is in narrating the trivial
part of life that people might not notice at first sight and conveying
delightful thoughts.
Back
to the philosophy by Lao Tzu mentioned in the beginning, which inspired
me a lot, I am working with the ‘being’ (the form, the
shape of things, the existing material) but the ‘non-being’
(the content, the feeling, the delightful thoughts) is what I would
like people to use.
Biographical
details