About
Yinan Chen (b. 1992, Wuhan, China) is a ceramic artist, curator, and educator currently based in Wuhan, whose practice weaves traditional craftsmanship with contemporary interdisciplinary inquiry. She received her MFA in Ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), after completing both her BA and MA at the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts (HIFA), where she now serves as a lecturer in the School of Arts and Crafts. Chen’s immersive installations——often centered on the butterfly motif——explore themes of individual, society, nature, migration, and cultural identity through the integration of ceramics, water, metal, paper, wood, light, sound, and video. Her works have participated in more than 60 professional exhibitions and collected internationally and recognized with multiple awards.
Artist Statement
我的创作以陶瓷装置为核心，结合木、金属、水、影像、声音与光，关注个体在当代社会与自然系统中的处境与关系。我并不试图对现实作出判断，而是从一种相对理想化的艺术视角出发，通过感知、体验与再现，将现实中被忽略的张力重新呈现出来。
当代社会在物质与信息层面高度繁复，人与人、人与环境的关系被不断重组。这是一个充满可能性的时代，同时也潜藏着不安与脆弱。我认为艺术家所面对的，并非单纯的形式问题，而是如何在这样的时代结构中建立感知的秩序。创作对我而言，是一种持续审视社会的方式，也是我理解世界、理解自身的位置。
自2015年起，蝴蝶成为我创作中反复出现的母题。它源于一种矛盾的个人经验——我既被蝴蝶的美所吸引，又对其心生恐惧。随着创作的推进，蝴蝶逐渐脱离个人情绪，转化为一种去装饰性的符号，用以指涉迁徙、群体结构、脆弱性、蜕变以及对自由的追求。以蝶喻人，是我理解个体如何在社会系统中被塑形、被规训、又不断尝试突破的方式。
在材料与形式上，我关注对立关系的并置：复杂与克制、重复与差异、秩序与失序。陶瓷在我的创作中既象征脆弱，也指向时间的延续；它的物性成为连接历史、身体与当下经验的媒介。色彩的运用常在两极之间摆动——或明亮纯净，或非黑即白——使形式的复杂性与视觉的统一性彼此制衡。
我的作品往往呈现为可被行走、观看、停留的空间。形式与色彩在其中相互作用，既构成一种结构化的秩序，也保留变化与不确定的可能。这种状态如同生命本身：看似重复的日常之下，每一刻都在发生细微而不可逆的改变。我希望作品能够为观者提供一个放慢节奏的场域，在其中重新感知自身与世界的关系。
My practice centers on ceramic-based installations, often incorporating wood, metal, water, sound, light, and moving images. Rather than offering direct commentary, I approach art as a way of sensing and re-framing reality, using spatial experience to reveal tensions that are often overlooked in everyday life.
Contemporary society is marked by material abundance and structural complexity. Relationships between individuals, communities, and the environment are constantly reorganized. It is a time of opportunity as well as fragility. For me, artistic practice is not merely a formal pursuit, but an ongoing process of observing how order, repetition, anxiety, and desire coexist within these systems. Making work becomes a way of understanding both the world and my own position within it.
Since 2015, butterflies have been a recurring motif in my work. Originating from a personal contradiction——simultaneous attraction and fear——they gradually shifted from emotional symbols to a de-decorated visual language. In my installations, the butterfly functions as a metaphor for migration, collectivity, vulnerability, transformation, and the pursuit of freedom. By using butterflies to stand in for human presence, I explore how individuals are shaped, regulated, and transformed within social and ecological structures.
Materially, clay plays a central role in my work, valued for its inherent contradictions: fragility and permanence, immediacy and historical depth. These tensions resonate with the themes I explore. Formally, I often work with repetition, modular systems, and architectural order, while allowing irregular textures and variations to remain visible. Color oscillates between extremes, either vivid and luminous or reduced to black and white, creating a balance between visual restraint and structural complexity.
My installations are conceived as spaces to be entered, navigated, and experienced over time. Through spatial rhythm, material contrast, and controlled repetition, the works reflect the coexistence of stability and uncertainty. Like daily life itself, they reveal how seemingly repetitive routines contain constant, subtle change. I hope my work offers viewers a moment to slow down, reflect, and reconsider their relationship to time, society, and the environments they inhabit.