Artist and filmmaker Chen Zhou (b. 1987) graduated from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Media Art Lab with a BFA in 2009. His practice encompasses painting, print, sculpture and installation, but primarily he focuses on video. Chen is fascinated by contradictions inherent to film and video and frequently stages incongruous relationships between images that create a disjointed narrative. His experimentation with aesthetic language and curiosity about everyday decision making is a constant in his work, and questions, obscures or mocks the viewer’s and artist’s relationship to meaning: whether Chen investigates why the letter “P” is printed on a pepper shaker, or the behavioural patterns of twins, what seems random subject matter transforms into a working process that frames and reframes until every aspect of the work and its meaning has become ambiguous. ”(My) works (...) emit a visual sparsity and coldness which resonates with (my) interest in violent relations between systems and their constituent bodies” (Chen).
Chen’s work has been exhibited at AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, 2014; Magician Space, Beijing, 2013; SH Contemporary Hot Spots Project, AIKE-DELLARCO, Shanghai, 2012; and Talk, Platform China Contemporary Art Institute, Beijing, 2009. He has been included in numerous international group exhibitions, such as: China Independent Film Festival 10 , Nan Jing/Xia Men, 2013; Festival ASVOFF 6, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013; My Dear, You Shouldn’t Believe in Fairytales, 2P Contemporary Art Gallery, Hong Kong; 2013; Dressing the Screen, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, 2012; CN Unfinished Country: New Video from China, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, 2012; Until the End of the World, Tang Contemporary, Beijing, 2012; Moving Image in China 1988-2011, Centro Per L’arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, 2012; and Video Art in China, MADATAC, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, 2011. Chen Zhou was one of the finalists of the 2012 Focus on Talents Project, Today Art Museum, Beijing, Martell Art Fund art Fairs, and participated in the 2012 Shanghai Biennale.
Chen Zhou lives and works in Beijing.
