Recent Alumna Susan MB Chen '20 in First Solo Exhibition at Meredith Rosen Gallery
On Longing is the first solo show of visual art alumna Susan MB Chen ’20, who was recently featured in the New York Times for her organization of a virtual group show with her classmates at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Continuing along the same theme, Meredith Rosen Gallery presents Chen’s show at a very fraught time. On Longing features a series of portraits about the Asian American diaspora and several paintings were made from the artist’s living room during the pandemic.
From Meredith Rosen Gallery, Dani Yan writes, “Chen’s work is a navigation of identity and belonging. Her practice embodies these themes both internally and externally: the painting process prompts inward reflection while the paintings themselves provide outward representation. Chen paints to answer questions about her own identity and to address the lack of Asian Americans in Western portraiture. When painting Asian Americans, Chen is at once powerful and vulnerable. As an artist, she can grant visibility to her community through her work. As an Asian American, she must confront her own fears and desires in every portrait. On Longing represents her embrace of this dichotomy.”
Chen’s subjects are from the Internet; she finds volunteers for her portraits through community social media groups like Subtle Asian Traits, Subtle Asian Life NYC, Chinatowns of New York City, and NYC Yang Gang.
In an interview with Columbia University for Conversations with Artists in Art Getting Art, Chen said, “I usually paint people in five or six hours, from 1 to 6pm. It’s interesting because people can’t really help themselves, so they just start talking. You know. And I start to feel like I’m a therapist. Whereas before I got here, into the MFA program, I was painting landscapes. With a landscape you don’t have to worry about the tree’s feelings, or how the tree will be a couple years later, you know what I mean? Whereas with people, they’re human, they’re real, they’re fragile, they’re vulnerable. You have to make sure they’re ok.”
Yan remarks that though Chen gives equal weight to every feature of the portrait (facial expressions, articles of clothing, background objects), this robust attention to detail also brings to focus the visible discomfort of the subject. “...None of [the sitters] look quite comfortable where they are. Their glances are darting towards the periphery, their lips are pursed, and their faces are tense. Perhaps they feel like they don’t belong, perhaps they are looking for acknowledgement from those beyond the frame. This is the shared Asian American experience, the sense of longing, that imbues Chen’s work: to be hidden yet wanting to be seen.”
Chen talks about her upcoming show and its contents in a podcast with Meredith Rosen Gallery’s Carla Shen.
Chen is a first-generation Asian-American who grew up between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom during the Hong Kong handover, prior to immigrating to the United States. She received her BA Hons from Brown University. In 2019, she was a finalist for the AXA Art Prize, and was also featured in New American Paintings #141 and #147 juried by Beth Rudin DeWoody and Amber Esseiva. This is Susan Chen’s first exhibition with the gallery.
On Longing opened on Aug. 15 and runs through Sep. 19. On Aug. 27, Chen will be a part of a Zoom call with the gallery.
