Emerging + Submerging

 ...Searching for images that would not limit and erase the intricacies of lived experience, Chen created numerous series of close-ups of body parts. They are fragmented self-portraits oscillating between narcissism and self-alienation. The stylized images of slick and oily hair, luscious red lips, and body parts almost impossible to identify in turquoise blue water fluctuate between sensuality and revulsion, attraction and aversion. The pictures are not just a mirror of our broken relationship with the body. Chen consciously plays with the myths surrounding the female Asian body in Western culture, the oppressive archetype of the loving, servile, and passive Geisha.

Against this backdrop, her self-portraits are attempts to find images of the female Asian body that resist the power of the viewer by opening up a vertiginous multiplicity of possible readings. In between seduction and dismay, Chen outlines a body that is no longer just a mere shadow of an overpowering and unattainable ideal image.

Martin Jaeggi, from the press release Suzie Wong Doesn't Live Here Anymore