Scattered All Over the Earth
In Scattered All Over the Earth, artist Jiayun Chen imagines a whimsical landscape that dissolves borders and identities, one in which shared language and its rules do not exist. Borrowing the exhibition title from Yōko Tawada's dystopian novel of the same name, Chen's work examines the peculiarities of language and the inevitable slippages that occur within human attempts at communication. Embracing a slow-paced artmaking process, she relies on drawing, ceramic sculpture, and installation to simultaneously guide the visitor along a path that leads everywhere and nowhere at all. Mistranslated Chinese tattoo sculptures pave the way to a maze of clay towers that both anchor and decenter our sense of grammar. Garbled phrases pasted on ordinary t-shirts serve as flags of a new linguistic identity, welcoming in visitors to a language-less land. The artist leaves the viewer to create her own path, twisting and turning familiar words into scattered meanings through wit and humor. Guided by her own experience navigating an English-dominant world as a native Chinese speaker, Chen ventures beyond the limitations of language to arrive at a more fluid yet shared understanding.
- Nadia Estrada
Installation View :
Individual Works:
Husband ? flow ? / Mistakes people’s make
Image transfer on wood, dye sublimation on t-shirt
35 x 6 x 20 inches
Kill them all, Let god deal with them / Become Door
Image transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
24 x 30 x 10 inches
I don’t know I don’t speak Chinese, Sky word flow word kong / shut the fuck up the slang which I learned frst///teachImage transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
29 x 28 x 20 inches
Big luck parent believe / Crap your hands
Image transfer on wood, dye sublimation on t-shirt
31 x 4 x 27 inches
Save moving, Save moving / Think less stupid mImage transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
31 x 27 x 17 inches
Save moving, Save moving / Think less stupid m (detail)
Image transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
31 x 27 x 17 inches
Save moving, Save moving / I’m sorry little friend…I was hasty you’re not a duck…Image transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
28 x 22 x 12 inches
Save moving, Save moving / I’m sorry little friend…I was hasty you’re not a duck…
Image transfer on wood, vinyl on t-shirt
28 x 22 x 12 inches
Foreigner
Vinyl, image transfer on wood
117 x 38 x 38.5 inches
ForeignerVinyl, image transfer on wood
117 x 38 x 38.5 inches
Peace love loyalty
Vinyl, image transfer on wood
136 x 36 x 17 inches
Peace love loyalty (detail)
Vinyl, image transfer on wood
136 x 36 x 17 inches
Image transfer on wood, acrylic
Dimensions variable