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Lot Essay
Chen Ke stands out among the artists who arose from the Chinese " Cartoon Generation ". Although trained as a painter, the female artist expriments with a variety of mediums and does not limit herself to the canvas. The mood in her work is representattive of her generation's feelings. Most people in her age group, products of the one-child policy, struggle to find their place in a society that once relied on relatedness and community and is now focused on the individual, but mainly in a materialistic way. Their experience is solitude and disorientation.
Plum Blossom (Lot 510) features her signature character, the button-nosed girl. She represents Chen Ke's alter ego. The girl looks introverted and pensive, alone in a world of imagination, with no background but layers of paint, almost reminiscent of lacquer in texture or jade in colours, and infused with references to art history, either Western or Eastern. This girl is the sole human figure to appear in Chen Ke's works. The whimsical reference to the deer is all the more interesting in this painting. "The title, plum blossom, refers to a classic motif in Chinese art, the 'sika deer,' also know as the 'Plum Blossom deer' in Chinese, because of its spotted fur. " The animal is traditionally associated with longevity and immortality ; however, it is endangered today. Chen Ke plays on the deer name and depicts a burgeoning plum tree in the shape of a deer. Her character, also in a budding stage, sits on the branches/antlers, lost in thoughts, possibly contemplating the fate of the species and her own and the loneliness they both experience from different circusmstances.
Plum Blossom (Lot 510) features her signature character, the button-nosed girl. She represents Chen Ke's alter ego. The girl looks introverted and pensive, alone in a world of imagination, with no background but layers of paint, almost reminiscent of lacquer in texture or jade in colours, and infused with references to art history, either Western or Eastern. This girl is the sole human figure to appear in Chen Ke's works. The whimsical reference to the deer is all the more interesting in this painting. "The title, plum blossom, refers to a classic motif in Chinese art, the 'sika deer,' also know as the 'Plum Blossom deer' in Chinese, because of its spotted fur. " The animal is traditionally associated with longevity and immortality ; however, it is endangered today. Chen Ke plays on the deer name and depicts a burgeoning plum tree in the shape of a deer. Her character, also in a budding stage, sits on the branches/antlers, lost in thoughts, possibly contemplating the fate of the species and her own and the loneliness they both experience from different circusmstances.