Paint Pizzazz
34 MAY 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
grouping of colorful, car-toon-
ish portraits featuring his friends.
He starts with one “prototype” — a gen-erative,
abstract portrait, and then riffs
on it in various iterations. “All of their
facial expressions accumulate in my re-source
pool,”
he explained, “strengthening the
prototype.” In the paintings, exaggerated
smiles and tears abound.
Though Chen lives in Williamsburg,
Art
Photos courtesy of Chen Dongfan Studio
BY CAMERON NORSWORTHY
Light spills through Dongfan Chen’s
studio. Floor-to-ceiling windows give way
to the familiar, industrial views of Long
Island City — alleyways, truck loading
docks, warehouses. Beyond that, bridges
and water, and later: Manhattan. Turn
inward, though, and Chen’s studio walls
glare brighter than any blue sky or pre-summer
sunshine could; his paintings
gleam brighter than any Midtown sky-scraper.
Chen’s created an immersive
painting in his signature saturated hues
— so much so that you can barely dis-tinguish
portraits from the studio walls
painted beneath them.
For 11 days, Chen nurtured this room,
turning white walls into surfaces rife with
energy and paint. He took inspiration from
W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Moon and
Sixpence,” wherein the main character,
an artist, spends days painting his room
over. Thus, Chen spent 11 days of his own
studio, “making a 360-degree, colorful
environment,” he explained, through friend
and translator Jane Shi.
Chen’s current series-in-progress is a
Photo by Inna Xu, courtesy
of Chen Dongfan Studio
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