About

Angela Yanjun Chen is a visual artist based in London. She has an MA in Printmaking from the Royal College of Art in London, 2017-19, and a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, 2013-16. She was shortlisted for the Hidden Talent Art Award in 2022, received the Global Talent award endorsed by Arts Council England in 2021 and was nominated for the Global Eye Award sponsored by Saatchi Gallery in 2020. Recent exhibitions include Black Mirror-Play and Black Mirrow-Waterfall at Boomer Gallery in London, 2021; Double Side, at RCA, 2019; What a Relief!? at CGP Gallery, London, 2019. She has previously exhibited and taken part in international projects in Brazil, China, France and Japan including an exhibition and residency at Kura Art Studio in Fukuoka, Japan in 2017.

Chen’s work is a physical dialogue between transience and permanence, attending to ideas about the temporal fragility of life often visited within historic Vanitas and Memento Mori artworks. Recent sculptures have brought together organic material and resin to speak about beauty, preservation and decay. In nature, resin protects plants from insects and pathogens, reacting with air and creating a protective, solid layer. Within Chen’s artworks the resin creates this encapsulating protection in some instances, and, in others, provides a support structure. Her sculptures find a balance between geological phenomenon, wayside plants and ikebana flower arrangements, with the crystal clear base pieces emulating ice, spring water and glass vases. Ongoing existence and performativity are captured in her work through the gestures used to place, mark and set each component.