Born 1984, Tainan, Taiwan
Lives and works in Taipei

Chen Ching-Yuan is particularly interested in the weight of history and social conventions on the individual, and he explores this theme in his haunting, surrealistic paintings, installation, video and drawing. In March and April of 2014, Chen was involved in the Sunflower Movement, a sustained protest in which a group of student occupied the Taiwanese parliament. Chen was deeply influenced by the events, and his recent work Unravel, comprising small paintings and objects, directly reflects the emotional impact of this experience. It explores the difference between the private space of intimate dialogue and more public forms of communication, such as state politics and the media, especially during moments of confrontation. Chen chose not to represent the events directly in these paintings, but to use fragmented, dreamlike images metaphorically invoking desires and traumatic memory.