I enjoyed hearing from US-based painter QiuChen Fan about her machine-like painting practice and how she came to the art world by following her passion to create.

Share a bit about your background.

I started my art journey in the US in 2011 with the offering of a Dean's Scholarship from Cleveland Institute of Art. At the time, I just finished my first degree in Kunming, China in Business English which was chosen by my mom. Of course, being a businessperson was never my dream. When I was a little girl, I liked to tell my own stories by drawing on papers, newspapers, my textbooks, or even my grandma’s notebooks, whatever I could get my hands and imagination on. I discovered at a very young age: this is one of the ways I can enjoy life and find my personal value. So, I decided to study something that would really make sense for my life and interests.

***Habitat, acrylic painting by QiuChenFan***

I received my BFA in Drawing from Cleveland Institute of Art in 2015 with the “Excellence in Drawing” award scholarship.

I had my first solo exhibition, Gallery as Boutique (2015), right after my graduation at a vintage boutique I found called “Eclectic Eccentric”. Surprisingly, I sold almost all the pieces I put in that little show. My work produced from that period (in school) till my later Manikins (2017-present) series can be all linked to our consumer culture and related social behaviors that I have been interested in. However, I paused my studio practice after this show because of limited space and resources in those days. I started to work as a freelancer doing graphic design and illustration until a few years later. I can finally settle down as a studio artist again to continue my own art practice and better focus on my art producing. I currently live in the US.

What is your preferred medium?

Recently, I mainly work on stretched canvas with acrylic paint. I appreciate the fast-drying quality of acrylic, which allows me to apply the second and third layers of paint in the same day.

Painting was not my major back in school. I was a drawing major, but our studios were mixed with the painting studios on the same floor, which provided me chances to visit my peers’ studios. At the time, I really enjoyed gestural line drawing with materials like charcoal, ink, and tempera, while acrylic/oil painting for me was more about the covering and stacking of colors. Since I got a “C” in my foundation color class, I always thought that color wasn’t my thing.

Anyway, when I eventually went back to the studio, I just decided to go out of my comfort zone and begin to paint with acrylic. I was so intrigued by the technical practice of using brushes to create an acrylic surface of flat and rich colors. Sometimes it felt like torture, but now after a few years of devoting myself to these little brush movements that are delicately repeated, I have found pleasure in the process.

***In Front of the Mirror, acrylic painting by QiuChen Fan***

What ideas are you exploring in your work?

Most of my pieces talk about people and relevant topics. I just finished the fourth painting for my Habitat (2018-present) series at the end of 2020. In this series, each piece looks very much like a solitary portrait of a specific plant kind. But I would rather consider the whole series as a eulogy, since I related them with all the house plants we’ve killed. However, besides this emotional dimension, Habitat is also a reflection on the fragile relationship among, or ambivalent co-existence of, human, nature and technology.

The green plant here symbolizes nature, vitality and endurance, struggling to survive under serenity. The pot-like imagery representing human impact is supposed to be connected with the plant, but their connection looks awkward and discordant. This punctuates the silent tolerance nature has against human. The sci-fi-like background is processed as color blocks without any sign of life, even without shadows of the plant, which is a metaphor for technological supremacy nowadays.

The machine-like painted surface is actually done with traditional application of paint by brush, which is self-deprecation to pretend to be like a machine. Is technology benefiting or destroying us? Is technology building or destroying nature? As part of nature, are humans becoming obsolete? Or is human perception of nature being distorted? Living in the age with ongoing automatization, is it really true that free-willed humans have been dominated by programmed instructions? Tones of questions could be asked.

What is your artistic process like?

I am normally inspired by situations we’ve lived during (news/social events) and also other artists’ works. I consider the role of an artist as an observer, and art is the way to meditate what has been observed. It’s possible for me to work on multiple canvases that have been roughly sketched out where each painting within the next stage requires accurate applications of paint. As a result, the whole duration for completing each piece could be stretched much longer.

I do research throughout the whole process in creating each series.

Like the Manikins series mentioned above, I started in 2017. I played on cliches of identity and culture at the beginning, as you can see in one early piece called Standing in Front of The Mirror (2018).

Later, I wanted my work to be more specific, personal and private. I started to develop my figures in a way that blended into backgrounds or into each other, as you can tell from the piece like Susan (2018). This intends to express our confusion and social-manner-anxiety from chasing a sense of existence and attachment through a whole set of prescribed social manners, such as how to dress, how to talk, and how to behave. Additionally, the reduction of figurative details to abstract geometric shapes represents a “low-resolution-interpretation”, such as people’s uncertainty about themselves and their simplistic judgments toward others, especially under the impact of media and commercial systems.

***Transplanted, acrylic painting by QiuChen Fan***

Along with my works in progress, I started to bring questions like: what does it mean to be “well-dressed”? What look makes you a “nerd”, a “natural beauty”, too “conservative”, too “pretentious” or too “feminine”? Because we still judge people through these visual cues, no matter how rude or ignorant. I set the tone at the moment for this group of paintings as a portrait of the word “stereotype”, and viewers would be invited to use their accepted knowledge to enrich it and continuously make their own stories.

For a piece done in 2019, Hi Tim, This Is Ray, I finalized thoughts for those well-dressed figures to symbolize our excessive concern about how people would understand us through the way we present ourselves, while questioning our general and careless acceptance of culture oppression from westernized aesthetics and values.

Can you talk a bit about the evolution of your practice and style?

My style was strongly influenced by collage art, digital printing, and graphic design, especially my most recent paintings. For example, in my most recent Habitat series, design thoughts like limited use of color and minimal compositions help me build a bold and surreal environment on canvas. Also, the plant imagery is depicted in the way of realistic representation, even though likeness is not a subject matter in my work. This actually embraces the collage idea of using photos and also printed floral images on retro wallpaper: forever paradox for human of using the artificial to heal longings for the real.

I am now focusing on a machine-like painting practice without stroke-marks as I mentioned. I consider this laborious human-touch as an analog mimic of digital manipulation, like photoshop cutout in collage, as well as a fun-making of ourselves living in the age of technological supremacy. Andy Warhol said: “I want to be a machine.” I would say: “I want to pretend like I am a machine.”

***Drained, acrylic painting by QiuChen Fan***

Which artists do you look to for inspiration?

Kara Walker’s paper-cut figure silhouettes inspired me a lot. Her idea of “nothing tells more” is exactly what my abstract portraits want to say. Our form of expression exists in between highly representational and highly symbolic, which means this kind of art leaves a lot of space for personal interpretation and reflection. By erasing the identifying details in almost all my characters, viewers are invited to complete the scenario by using their own experiences.

Also, David Hockney’s use of fast-drying acrylic paint portraying the sun-lit, clean-contoured suburban landscapes of California fascinates me. I haven’t tried his masking technique of painting using rollers. I am still sticking with the traditional application of paint by brush.

Which artists do you enjoy at the moment?

There are so many artists on Instagram I can talk about. Technology does provide artists a lot more chances to know one another, to look and to learn.

Like some similarities that I recently found about plant’s portrait shared in my paintings and Guy Yanai‘s paintings, Kensuke Koike’s pure editing and manipulation without adding and deleting, Joan Coenella’s ambiguous seriousness, Frederic Forest’s illusion of shapes simply created by lines, Tishk Barzanji’s film-like rooms within flowing light and colors, flatness and uniformity in Kelly Beeman’s characters, or Schiele and Klimt you can found in Nikolrta Sekulovic’s female bodies…, all of these little things I observed every time were just intriguing and could be mind-blowing. I may never see their pieces in person, but the connections we can have through social media daily updates were exciting and inspiring.

What is your studio like?

I am a home-based studio artist and recently moved my studio from a second-floor room to my basement, which allows me to have more space to make a mess like painting, packaging or whatever I need to do. I even created a lounge area in my studio. I try not to burn myself out with super long hours working. With the lounge area, I can take a break anytime without leaving my studio.

So, in any of my studio days, I would get my painting tools prepared on the side table, open the windows, close the door, fill myself a bottle of water, turn on my favorite music station on Pandora, and then, finally, I am ready to start!

What is the most memorable thing someone has said about your work?

I once made a note for my Manikins series on social media saying: “After all, how difficult could it be to create a personality based on just matching criteria from fashion magazines?” So, there was a guy, after reading what I wrote above, he commented: “Oh please, stop this ancient story.”

***Hi Tim, This Is Ray, acrylic painting by QiuChen Fan***

I immediately related his words with a novel called The Million Pound Bank Note, by Mark Twain in 1893, because I read this story with illustrations when I was a kid and it impressed me. Anyway, since he mentioned about “ancient story”, I recommended him to search and read the story about Anna Delvey (Anna Sorokin) who moved to New York in 2013, and in 2019 she got convicted of multiple counts of attempted grand larceny, theft of services, and larceny in the second degree for defrauding New York hotels and wealthy acquaintances.

Her story was widely reported on for her ability to blend into social circles and ways she presented to be herself. This story is of our time and it’s real! Many people believe what they see or, really, only what they want to believe. It’s this significance of appearance that we as a society place on ourselves and others that I observe and address in my Manikins series. However, the guy deleted his comment later from the post. He really didn’t have to, because this was how the conversation would continue.

What are you working on now?

I did a window painting this year as a witness of my 2020 called Good Morning. Good Night. This window embodies my self-isolating at home starting from March 2020 and continuing, at least for now. Yes, I haven’t been outside the door except my own yard, for 9 whole months! My husband and I do all shopping online and meet friends only on zoom. Being cautious won’t hurt, I guess. This work is also a self-interiority exploring and a tender look at our home lives. The blue being structured in the high-positioned window frame welcomes my vision while simultaneously excluding my touch. As a connection and slice of the inside and the outside, this window is enticing yet prohibitive, for a lot of us can relate to in this moment. People find alonness at their most vulnerable, enduring the struggle of everyday life in this special period of time. Human isolation helps us explore ourselves at our most vulnerable.

I am now planning on a new piece as a personal interpretation of someone else’s artwork, an artist I mentioned above. Instead of creating narrative by texts, I will use my own way, a painting in my own style, to visually indicate and reveal my own understandings. I’m excited about it.

QiuChen Fan