About Contemporary Abstract Artist Xuan Chen

Xuan Chen is an abstract visual artist. She makes non representational paintings and wall-sculptures. She was born in China, currently a Permanent Resident of the USA as an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” in Visual Arts.

Although her parents named her after the Chinese ink-brush Xuan paper, they did not expect her to be an artist. It was not until her mid-20s that the name started to fascinate her. While finishing up engineering degrees at the University of California at Berkeley, she sneaked in the Art Practice department. There she found her tribe, learned art-making from the most inspiring mentors, and made the best artist friends. They have been her most valuable intellectual assets ever since.Her influences include the California Light and Space Movement, as well as Color Field abstraction.  As a project-based artist, each body of her work focuses on a different concept. In the past few years, she has been working on concepts such as Light Space Intimacy, Beyond Color Field and Op Pop. Within these concepts,  her abstract paintings, sculptures and installations are approached from the possibilities between the 2D digital image-making and the 3D complexity in our visual world, where digital images and devices play such a huge role in our daily lives.  Although her works embrace western aesthetics in contemporary abstract art, she constantly applies techniques, processes and inspirations from traditional Chinese art to her art practice. No matter what forms of her artwork entail, subjects such as color theory, constructivism and geometric abstraction frequently appear in her processes. Xuan Chen has received many national and international awards, grants, solo and group shows in galleries, museums and film festivals. Please visit her portfolio, view her projects and read her processes, ideas and inspirations if a specific body of work fascinates you.