KÜNSTLERHAUS

BETHANIEN

Künstler*innen

Chen Li

USA

Ostrich, 2018, Ash wood, Walnut wood, 12'' x 16'' x 22.5'', 8'' x 11'' x 15'' inches

My work blurs the boundary between poetic object and product/furniture design.

I think about feelings that socially are considered negative and how objects accept those feelings in domestic spaces. What is it like being home and being away from home? Or feeling a sense of belonging and feeling like an outsider. Having emotions that get lost in translation, even in my home language. Loved and lacking love. Trying to take control in terms of accident and crisis. Feeling safe and insecure.

I think about furniture, body, and the space in between, the space that makes a chair or stool have more function than holding a weight, makes a lamp more than a light source and a mirror more than a reflection , and makes an object carry a human presence which makes it empathetic and understandable to its viewer and user. In this process, story telling comes through my creation of still-life-like objects.

AUFENTHALT
01.07. – 31.08.2018