Dead Sea

Graduated from the Si Chuan Academy of Fine Arts, Chen Ying's works have a kind of mysterious and desolate, yet poetic aesthetic in them. He spends a lot of time and effort in carving dolls without traces of flesh, deeply provoking the pain and sorrow in viewers. Chen likes using found objects which are filled with memories and stories of their own. His works evoke feelings of horror and grief at first sight. In the quiet solitude, his dolls usually dressed in dazzling dresses are presented in his works as being trapped in a paint bucket, or tangled in the swarm of LED lights. They look out to the difficulty and dilemma before their eyes, but are unable to break free. These abandoned dolls originally wearing glamourous dresses are now exposed, revealing their weaknesses, scars and imperfections - presented through a cruel and brutal manner that leaves viewers terrified. Ideas about the delicacy and tenacity of life, about the existence of glamour and grief will gradually emerge after this initial fear viewers may have, revealing a slight degree of sympathy for the dolls.

Dolls - despite being an everyday object, have never existed in Chen's childhood. For Chen, the desertion of dolls implies a dramatic change in society. People's attitudes and excessive demands towards consumer goods today contrast strongly with the notion of treasuring things in the past. As part of the community and society, Chen moves forward and goes with the flow, while at the same time composes romantic and poetic feelings towards memories of the past that can never be relived again.