Land scape
CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW
LandEscape meets
Stephen Chen
An interview by Katherine Williams , curator and Josh Ryder , curator landescape @ europe . com
Multidisciplinary artist Stephen Chen ' s work rejects any conventional classifications and is marked with freedom as well as rigorous formalism , when exploring complex ideas and issues immanent in his works through experiments in form and technique . In his BOUNDED NATURE Project that we ' ll be discussing in the following pages , he investigates the dialectic and tension between the natural and the man-made ; how nature is contained , pruned , and rendered “ invisible ”. One of the most impressive aspects of Chen ' s work is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of unveiling the ubiquitous connections between Man ’ s and his surroundings : we are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating and multifaceted artistic production .
Hello Stephen and welcome to LandEscape : to start this interview , would you like to tell us something about your multifaceted background ? You have been an avantgarde concert pianist , fineart photographer , filmmaker , performance artist , poet , and opera singer . How do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist ? In particular how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general ?
Thank you for having me ! It sounds as if I did a lot of different things at once , but what happened was I moved from discipline to discipline trying to find the medium best suited to the ideas I was exploring at that time .