Interrogating dreams
Virtually every artist experiences a moment of revelation. When Chen began exploring minimalism in the context of materials, she discovered what had been a constant source of turmoil in her life-dreams.
"I've dreamed almost every day since I was a child," says Chen. "I used to puzzle over dreams all day long with classmates." She recalls her dreams being like soap operas, their plots extending over three days. On the first day, she'd be thrust into a strange place where she'd walk around lost. On the second, she'd begin to find her way. On the third, she'd finally find an exit and travel back to wherever she'd originally been. The progress through the cycle was hypnotic: set out on a strange journey, get lost, get oriented, rediscover her starting point.
One of these dream cycles placed her in a large body of water where, after swimming for a time, she saw a television. Curious whether it would turn on in the water, she investigated. When she flipped the switch, the TV emitted a powerful white light that pulled her inside. There she found gemstones, shells, and spirits, as well as a fog-shrouded forest.
Her dreams often placed her beside a cliff towering over a lake. Though she knew herself to be an excellent swimmer, she was reluctant to dive in. Was she afraid that leaping into the water corresponded to dying? One evening, more than a decade later, she finally got up the nerve to dive in and discovered that she was wearing only a bath towel.
"Dreams took me into a different world," says Chen. "But the me in the real world still existed, so what was the relationship between these two worlds?" She says dreams transcend logical categories of understanding. As Freud put it, they represent the fulfillment of wishes. But they may also provide insights into the future. With those thoughts in mind, Chen attempted to understand the world through astrology and found that its rich mythology and symbolism, fraught with metaphoric implications, provided ample fodder for her creative work.
Her 2006 solo exhibition Here and Now drew together all her various works into something of a retrospective of her career to that point.
The show incorporated three exhibition rooms, two doorways, and the twin themes of love and dreams. On the floor at one end was a schematic representation of Chen's understanding of the links between love and dreams, atop which stood a fiberglass thistle covered in spines. Passing through an arched doorway, visitors were drawn to what looked like a soft, glistening cloud on the floor ahead. When they got closer, they discovered that the "cloud" was actually silver thread strung through thousands of sewing needles.
Passing around this threatening bit of "softness," visitors came to a large bed made of orange ping-pong balls. On the wall beside it was an illustration of the "eight points" of self-actualization mentioned by the shaman Don Juan Matus. Beyond the bed, visitors passed through a keyhole-shaped doorway into an enchanting spherical star bathed in blue light.
In addition to being an artist, Chen is the planning director of IT Park, a gallery at the heart of Taiwanese contemporary art.