Chen Chen on Oil Painting, AI Imagery and the Defence of Ambiguity

Chen Chen, a painter based in London, blends oil and digital techniques, utilizing AI-generated visuals while challenging their certainty. In her interview with Artplugged, she characterizes her figures as both distorted and dissolved, steering clear of fixed representation. Her series, Liquidity of Identity, showcases digitally painterly fragments with fluid brushwork, where color assumes a structural role, resembling a Rorschach test's abstraction. Chen perceives AI as a partner in creativity, appreciating the surprising outcomes that lead to new paths. She highlights the importance of authorship in the selection and transformation process over mere mark-making. For her, color embodies emotional memory, often reflecting experience more accurately than the figure. Through open calls and group exhibitions, she critiques the simplicity of image creation, asserting that true value lies in the contradictory and incomplete nature of identity.