Mangroves @ Tang Contemporary ShunYi
April 17th, 2025
On a random Tuesday, I got in a taxi toward Lisson Gallery, which is inside of a larger arts complex on the edge of the city called the National Base for International Cultural Trade also know as the Beijing Art Bounded Zone. As I wrote previously, Tang Contemporary Art’s Beijing headquarters was also inside of this base with Chen Qin currently on view in his solo exhibition Mangrove.
I rarely get out to this part of the city, so although I was running late to see my intended exhibition, I took a detour into the gallery. I was greeted with the wall text and an empty gallery with not even a gallery attendant on staff. It felt almost as if I was sneaking in. But, I honestly enjoyed the solitude with no one to inquire my purpose in the gallery or watching my every move.
Turning the my left, the room was filled with elegant women who although depicted in the mundane actions of gardening, cooking, serving, cleaning, or swimming are strikingly fluid and engaging. Chen painting style is truly distinct in the natural hues of greens, browns, yellows, and reds which come together beautifully with rope like layering of brushstrokes taking us to a contemporary surreal realm of dancing women, close ups of the mangroves she probably has recollected from childhood growing up in Fujian province China, and close up snap shots from everyday life.
Sapplings, Oil on Canvas, 2024
The cut out scenes I particularly enjoyed. For instance the painting, Two Sapplings (2024), shows the action behind the agricultural landscape in Fujian by cropping the woman kneeling in a white dress with long sleeves shoveling and two plants nearby separately wrapped in cloth atop the dirt waiting to be placed in their new home. With no face to detect the gravity of the action stays with the viewer, slowing my consumption of the work down. In doing so assisting viewers to imagine what life is like for this community, what must the soil feel like, and how would this slow life be if they were to experience it.
Each painting feels like a dance, the wind, and solace. From Bird (2024), which has two wavy haired women entangled with what seems to be a black goose, White Circles (2024), staring two women entangled in vegetation and a large thread of sorts — a representation of large gusts perhaps — or some bout of confusion. Outside of the symbolism the painting is simply magnificent. It is one of those pieces that makes you feel, makes you think, and makes you want to stay even though you definitely have to go.
I really did enjoy the dark hue of Chen’s subjects. Darker skin tones of Chinese natives historically have been undocumented in fine art. To see even at a fictional level the grace and beauty Chen brings to these female figures is reassuring that there is interest and respect for dark skinned Chinese people or ethnic populations in China that are not as focused on or depicted in mainstream contemporary work.
White Circles, Oil on Canvas, 150 × 130 cm, 2024
Another note on Chen’s painting style which is seems taped but is actually achieved via fine brush to achieve sharp lines and thick application of paint to the canvas which separates the background from the subject while maintaining the fluidity in curvature of the movement and wind-filled posture of the figures is quite stunning. This distinct style throughout the exhibition is one I really enjoyed, and reminded me of the surrealism I studied in undergrad that had me constantly captured.
Shows like Chen Qin’s are rare and in-between as one is closer to the city center. I think that the choice to have it in the rural development of their headquarters was the right move. Those that are intentional about seeing it/ and work generally no matter where it is (even if it is on accident) will see it. To this end, I feel that this kind of work would not be able to exist at scale of a solo exhibition in 798 because someone would find a reason to be offended instead of appreciating the work for what it is — masterfully made, poinient, and especially personal to the maker who aims to say something no one else is. This is, that I’ve come across. Chen Qin’s Mangrove is an homage, a living portrait, and a story of a life not so sought after, but a life that those who live it feel is a never ending love song.
Mangrove was on view March 1, 2025 through April 12, 2025.
View the full show here.
