Yingming Chen
Yingming Chen is a London-based artist from Zhaoqing, China. Born in 1997, he investigates and challenges sociopolitical issues via the critical physicality of his sculptures. By delving into the exploration of different types of techniques, he unremittingly pushes the boundaries of the materials themselves and contextualizes his work through a sociopolitical trajectory.
If you’d like to know more about his works, please visit his website or his Instagram.
About:
Yingming Chen was born in China but has been living in London for approximately a decade. After obtaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the City & Guilds of London Art School in 2020, he has been pursuing his Masters in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art. His sculptural practice explores a wide range of sociopolitical issues and their ripple effects in terms of how people make decisions and react under the nimbus of social and political circumstances.
Yingming Chen, Between the Note F and Note F#, 2021. Ballot box (SPCC steel), 300 x 300 x 100 mm.
The power of Between the Note F and the Note F# lies in the fact that it questions the notion of the freedom to choose under a perplexing social and political repertoire. This piece of work resembles a gong, which is a musical instrument that mainly serves as the purpose of calling people together and coming up with a concordant decision, and it is made of a ballot box – a metaphor for the right to vote. Nonetheless, do people nowadays really possess the freedom to choose whatever they want? There seems to be a ubiquitous acquiescence that exists within multiple political situations all over the world. By percussing this gong, viewers can hear a note that is somewhere between the note F and F#, further strengthening the idea that the voice of the people has nowhere to come from.
Yingming Chen, The People, 2020. Plywood, perspex and shoes, 3220 x 320 x 1610 mm.
Inspired by a Nazi concentration camp museum, Chen took the idea from the victims’ disorderly scattered shoes to create The People, made from plywood and perspex, by filling the two frames of the Chinese characters “The People (ren min)” with a considerate number of identical sneakers from a popular Chinese brand. The sneakers resemble the people who had been taken captive by the authority during several democratic protests throughout history. This representation raises a question on the relationship between the country and its people. When people take part in demonstrations or other types of democratic congregations for the sake of appealing for their rights, does the authority simply view their behaviours as expressing their demands, or as intentions of threatening its authoritarian regime?
The Press, Papier maché, 155 x 340 x 160 mm, 2019
Leveraging the technique of papier maché, a conventional method of making a composite material with paper pulp, Chen’s work The Press was reconstructed into the shape of a video camera, a vehicle that is widely used by news reporters reporting major incidents around the world, which was made from the printouts of newspaper reports and commentaries extracted from websites and social media during the 2019 Hong Kong extradition protests. This meticulously rendered piece is indeed a stinging satire, reflecting the manipulation of the media under hegemonism and power politics as well as questioning the existentialism of protests and demonstrations.
Selected Exhibitions
2021
ACall Festival - The Politics of Physicality, Netil360, London.
The Exhibition, Hackney Downs Studios, London.
Class of 2020 BA & MA Fine Art Graduates, Bargehouse, OXO Tower Wharf, London.
Merzbau Pavilions: Speculations and Propositions, Merz Barn, Ambleside.
First Impressions, Safe House 1&2, London.
古池塘, 扑通跳入水中央, 一声响, Yell Space, Shanghai.
Redirecting [正在重新规划路线], Tree Art Museum, Beijing.
2020
London New Contemporaries, Hari Hotel, London.
Final, not Over, Unit 1 Gallery, London.
2019
Neo Hua Ren: New Diaspora in London, Crypt of St Pancras Church, London.
CGLAS Fine art group show, Art Hill Gallery, London.
Awards
2018 The Merlin Entertainments Group - Madam Tussauds’ Project Fund Award.
Danni Han
Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED