Introduction
Seen in the context of Chen Fei's painting career up to this point, "The Stranger" seems less a jumping-off point than an aesthetic notion. It unfolds itself, as so much of Chen's work does, around a central figure immersed in a strange, heartbreakingly beautiful narrative, passing through a seemingly endless series of parallel worlds. Concealed in between the cracks of these worlds we find the hallmarks of Chen's single-minded, almost stubborn technique: a powerful emphasis on time couched as a response to the author's yearning for "precision", and his scrupulous adherence to a sharpened, hyper-flat aesthetic standard.
Although it would be unreasonable to expect each and every viewer of "The Stranger" to be able to savor the spiritual consolation that Chen Fei finds in his work, it is not unreasonable at all to interpret Chen's latest work as a nod to his life beyond his career, as a nod to the artistically-minded son of an isolated county in Shanxi who, arriving in the capital became, after much collaboration and transformation, a young artist who's begun to turn heads. It could be that the Chen Fei of yesterday is and will remain a stranger to all of us, forever the residents of today. In the end, though, a person's life unfolds according to a fixed pattern. For Chen, painting is a linguistic construct that exists to lay bare those structures overlaid over human existence. That Chen has used his own journey as a reference for "The Stranger" signals the beginning of his appraisal of life's journey.
--Curator Sun Dongdong
Although it would be unreasonable to expect each and every viewer of "The Stranger" to be able to savor the spiritual consolation that Chen Fei finds in his work, it is not unreasonable at all to interpret Chen's latest work as a nod to his life beyond his career, as a nod to the artistically-minded son of an isolated county in Shanxi who, arriving in the capital became, after much collaboration and transformation, a young artist who's begun to turn heads. It could be that the Chen Fei of yesterday is and will remain a stranger to all of us, forever the residents of today. In the end, though, a person's life unfolds according to a fixed pattern. For Chen, painting is a linguistic construct that exists to lay bare those structures overlaid over human existence. That Chen has used his own journey as a reference for "The Stranger" signals the beginning of his appraisal of life's journey.
--Curator Sun Dongdong
