Timeline

CHEN Jiang-Hong was born in 1963 in Tianjin, China. Following his studies at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Tianjin and École des Beaux-Arts in Beijing, the artist joined the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1987. Since then, he has lived and worked between Paris and Tianjin. Chen’s work mirrors his journey, halfway between two cultures, those of the East and the West. The artist manages to free himself from his perfect mastery of the gesture of Chinese painting to turn to a vibrant abstraction with explosive lyricism.

Chen’s work aims to be halfway between the East and the West. His move to France in 1980 inspired a change in his paintings, through the appropriation of the codes and practices of a culture to which he had never had access before. It is a profusion of references, images and techniques that now come to nourish the artist. Being far from his homeland gives him a distanced look on his own culture, allowing him to revisit Chinese painting and turn to abstraction. Abstraction itself represents this obvious tension between an interiorised Chinese art and the fierce need for universality.