Huakai Chen
Huakai Chen (陈华铠) (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist currently residing in San Antonio, TX. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Huakai Chen about his practice and the conceptual process his work involves. We discussed his internal reflection and observations on grappling with social issues in China, as well as his mental, cultural, and physical proximity to them. His work has been shown in China, New York, and Boston. I wanted to talk with Chen because of the concepts he explores through his artmaking. Returning again and again to his website, I was captivated by the depth of meaning imbued in his work. I asked him about his artmaking process and how his work comes into being conceptually. I’d like to thank him for his time and thoroughness in answering my questions. Currently, Chen’s series of oil paintings, Window, Particle, and The Spectacles of The Collectives, are on view in the CAM Perennial exhibition.
Brianna Glass (BG): Can you tell me about the things you care about in China and how they appear visually or conceptually in your work?
Huakai Chen (HC): As part of my practice, I read domestic news that never appears on China’s official platforms but is posted anonymously on foreign social media every day. I will not mention the exact content of the stories to protect both the publishers and myself, but they include larger-scale activities like protests and smaller ones like injustice toward individuals. I ponder a lot on the way I observe these things. I think about the physical distance from where these issues happened and the emotions they triggered deep down in my heart, and I realize this way of observation is like looking out from a window: my body is bound to a space while my sight travels through barriers and seeks views from another space in the distance. Therefore, the “window” becomes an important motif in my work. With the intimate size of my work and the visual depth I create, I want to remind my audience of the space where they stand and invite them to look into the space in my paintings, like how I look into the social issues in China from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
When I make observations on social issues, I become interested in the relationships between individuals and the intricate systems of human society. Some of us devote ourselves to accomplishing the goals for the collectives, while others choose to reject the terms and rebel. That’s why I often use repetitive elements to break up the scenes from my everyday life and explore the interactions among different brush strokes and between these smaller elements and the overall subjects they constitute from an existential perspective.
Huakai Chen, “Window I”
BG: Can you cite a specific piece of art and explain how that piece conceptualizes societal issues physically?
HC: In Window I, the cityscape in the background is a town where my grandmother lives. It wasn’t formed “naturally” but a result of relocation of factories and industries from big cities to a then-no man’s land in response to the nation’s policies last century. The townspeople were all workers of the factories from all over the country, so different from most of the towns in China, there is no local custom or dialect. The alignments of the flies are an echo to this history.
BG: I read a write-up of how you use both Eastern and Western traditional methods of painting. Can you elaborate on how these traditional methods inform your work? Do you have other methods of artmaking that you are drawn to that also convey your concepts?
HC: In terms of the methods of painting, I have been experimenting with diluting oil paints with lots of medium and making them flow like ink. I like them to have the fluidity to respond to the movements of brushes. It allows me to build up the painting with thin layers, similar to the Eastern painting methods, and create the sense of visual depth and ambiguity related to the content of my work.
In addition to my practice in oil painting, I have been practicing Chinese traditional calligraphy for more than two decades. I am informed by the line quality and brush movement. I try to bring the same sensibility and commitment to every brush stroke I make in my work, because to me, these brush strokes metaphorically become individuals in a vast system of a collective, whether they work together to hold up the image, or when they fracture the image to make it morph into other forms.
Huakai Chen, “Window II”
BG: Do you see patterns in what you are addressing as far as East/West narratives?
HC: From my observation, the narratives in the East are often associated with collective, nation, history, and patriotism, and the narrators often hide behind the curtains to lift up the authority of the narratives. In the West, the narratives are usually more grounded and focus on empowering individuals and minorities. However, I notice that the narratives in politics have taken a rapid turn this year.
BG: Can you briefly tell from your perspective how narratives in politics have taken a rapid turn this year?
HC: I feel that the narrative in politics used to hold some level of virtues or objectivity, but now it aims to build the facade of certain individuals or institutes in favor of their interests.
BG: How is the art scene similar/different between China and San Antonio, Texas?
HC: I did not participate in the art scene in China for various reasons. I will say in China, the art scene and its art institutions are mostly under the control of the government on different levels. Commercial galleries and other non-official organizations are very rare. In San Antonio, I know the city government gets involved in the art scene to some degree, but there are also non-profit organizations, galleries, curators, and artists from diverse cultural backgrounds that are all actively contributing to the local artistic community. So, I think it’s more vibrant here.
BG: From that vibrancy, how has the San Antonio art community impacted your own practice?
HC: The vibrancy here helps me realize that in San Antonio, I can have the platform to explore my cultural roots and express them in the art-making process. It feels liberating for me.
Huakai Chen, “Window VI”
BG: Tell me about your art in The Inbetweeness CAM perennial show and how you occupy the inbetweeness in your artmaking practice.
HC: In the show, I will exhibit three works in a series, which are Window, Particle, and The Spectacles of The Collectives. They are the recent series I made with oil on different grounds on small-scale panels. The contents I painted in these works are scenes I capture in life. Some of them are very common, like a hole in the wall or a flock of birds flying over the roof, but through repetition, juxtaposition, and embedding of my reflection on my experience, I find the possibilities of morphing into something surreal or poetic in these mundane scenes.
When Marisa and I had conversations about the theme of the show and how it relates to my work, I mentioned entanglement, the term in quantum physics about how two related particles have influence on each other, no matter how far apart they are in the universe, and I used that as a metaphor that bridges me and my hometown in my practice. I emphasize the sense of distance and longing with the in-between space I create between the foreground and background in my work. Such in-between space draws the vision in to explore the obscure and mystical background, and in the meantime, blocks the viewers out with a sharp and definite foreground layered on top. This is the kind of push-and-pull of the inbetweeness I want to convey in my art-making.
Ambiguity is another theme I explore a lot in my work. And to me, it is the space between representation and abstraction and the countless possibilities in between. I tend to paint scenes that are not easily recognized at the first glance. It is more open to me that way to embed my thoughts and receive different interpretations of my work.
BG: What was the process and conversations like in selecting Window, Particle, and The Spectacles of The Collectives?
HC: I submitted the Window series in my application to CAM. In the selection process, when Marisa came to my studio, I showed her the former version of Particle, and we talked about my practice. We had a Zoom meeting later, and she expressed her interest in Particle and showed me some of her writing for the show. I was very inspired by that and thought the themes of transformation and translation she chose for the show lined up with my work. With those thoughts in mind, I did a new version of Particle and created the series of The Spectacles of The Collectives.
BG: Is there a particular theme or idea you are looking forward to exploring in your future artmaking?
HC: Currently, I’m working on incorporating the term “spectacle” by French philosopher Guy Debord into my work. I find it very relevant to the use of social media and the manipulation of narratives in current society, and painting is the perfect vessel for it because I believe the making of paintings is the creation of spectacles. I dabbled in this notion when making the series The Spectacles of The Collectives, but I want to push it forward more by exploring the materiality of painting and searching for different subjects and substances to present it.
The Inbetweeness, the CAM Perennial exhibition is on view at the UTSA Main Art Gallery through April 12, 2025 and is as part of Contemporary Art Month (CAM), San Antonio programming and activities. Brianna Glass is the fourth recipient of the Contemporary Art Month Writer’s Fellowship.
