Press

Published in Nov-Dec 2004/Jan 2005 issue of GALLERY&STUDIO by Peter Wiley

It is possible to say of Nana Chen that she paints as though she is inventing the art; as though no one ever painted before! In her recent exhibition at Montserrat Gallery, 584 Broadway, Chen impressed this reviewer with the direct, almost childlike, power of her work, which went beyond even the rawness of most so-called outsider art, reminding one of Jean Dubuffet at his most uninhibited.

Indeed, like Dubuffet in his great early pictures, Chen puts a perplexed face on the human race, capturing something essential and basic to our nature. In Chen’s wonderful little oil, “Yulonda,” for example, we are face to fact with the quintessential clueless blond. Chen captures her confusion with such brilliant simplicity that we can only wonder how an artist can be so simultaneously guileless and cunning. The only possible explanation would be that simplicity is the ultimate wisdom; that by going directly to the heart of the matter and committing an image to canvas that verges on caricature one can actually apprehend complexities of character that go far deeper than conventional portraiture. In any case, to see “Yulonda” is to fall instantly in love with her; for she is every endearing bottle-blond bimbo that Hollywood ever dreamed up summed up in paint in one priceless image.

Then there is “Woman with a Bun.” We’ve all known her as well. Perhaps she was our first grade teacher or local librarian, a very exacting type of lady who demanded that we always be on our best behavior. She is prim and proper to be sure, yet her face is rather green and her scarlet dress reveals that she may have a hidden wild side, as she gazes out from an ocher ground laid down in feathery strokes that suggest turmoil and tension brewing behind her prim façade.

Other paintings by Nana Chen nail complex moods and attitudes with admirable aplomb and casual painterly panache. In “Suspicion,” the female subject’s sense of distrust comes across in the very colors that the artist chooses: acidic yellows, greens, and reds that somehow manage to say a great deal in the most unconventional manner. Nana Chen, like the aforementioned Dubuffet, and the Grandma Moses for that matter, is what they call “a natural,” plain and simple. There does not appear to be a whole lot of irony in her work but there is certainly a warm humor and insight into the human condition. Her portraits are incisive, yet they are never mocking or mean spirited. Quite the contrary, her work shows a great love of humanity and all its foibles. Her figures may be rough and somewhat twisted-looking, but they are genuinely likable. Chen is an expressionist without an agenda; she seems to peer into the interior of our souls and express that vulnerability that belongs to all corporeal beings.

There is much resonance even in her nonfigurative subjects, as seen in a terrific little picture of what appears to be a religious temple. Yet it is Nana Chen’s powerful little portraits such as “Hollow Glance” which stop us in our tracks and make us realize that we are in the presence of a quirkily original talent.