Tian Chen

Tian Chen ·

Royal College of Art Ceramics & Glass 2018-2020 ·

Portfolio

Illustration for ceramic work “Departure”

A r t i s t s t a t e m e n t

Coming

from a design background and continually

being influenced by architecture, I am interested in telling stories with concise lines and forms. Building structures is also a way for me to occupy spaces.

Tian Chen

In my recent work, I use bullet-like forms. Representative of strength and speed, they act as a metaphor to describe the vitality of people I perceive in life and the collisions, departures and gaps among them.

The material I use is bone china, which is transparent.

I use light which shining through the tiny thickness among forms to suggest an almost connected but untouchable feeling.

We meet and we didn’t (2020) Video made with photo collage

P h o t o c o l l a g e

Taking

photos is the main way for me to gather inspiration, it helps me to rethink the way I look at things.

I’ve been making collages with photos I have taken in my room during the lockdown time, which initially is just unconscious behaviour.

The limitation of things i can see in a small bedroom has made me more sensitive to the joy brought by light. By simply manipulating a tiny light spot on the wall, i’m seeking a way to strengthen the pleasure brought by ordinary things.

Light in a room (2020) Photo collage

Light itself bring the location of sun, the

S p a c e

place where light come from.

By settling fake windows in dark room, and reverse the black and white of

images on

the tiles, i made a blurred space where light

a n d

come inside from the “windows” but also generated from the inner dark field.

l i g h t Vagueness (2019) Porcelain tiles with light box

In

the summer of 2019, I got a chance to explore the

materiality of transparency for an exhibition in china of which “light” is the theme .

With the property of bone china, I shape a space atmosphere with light and blurred image. The thickness of those tiles generated by parametric software from a daily photo i took.

Vagueness (2019) Porcelain tiles with light box on the back

N a t u r e

“Architecture is a structure in light” “Building rooms is a way to own a piece of light for our own”

o f s p a c e

——— Luis.L.Kahn

Luis Kahn influence me a lot on the way of

thinking about space which i have

been building with ceramic.

He talk about the importance of light in a space, where light is not only a decoration that make space more vivid after it built but more a orihinal reason that we built up a space for in order to keep the wonder when we see it initially.

It drive me to rethink the nature of me building spaces and the importance of light in structure.

C r a t e r

The

sense of space i’ve been experiencing before are

mostly based on a stable way of viewing space.

Since i worked with blurred image, i have started to think about the space we sense during body movement, which might be the opposite of clear, stable and more like a space that bring a progressive visual experience.

Crater (2019) bone china, slip casting

D i g i t a l

Crater Digital sketch

s k e t c h

Crater Ⅱ digital sketch 2020

In the “Crater”series，I built spaces that formed in colliding among objects.

The form caught the moving Trajectory while building a space inside.

V i s u a l i s e m o v e m e n t

The idea of “Departure� came from the vitality of people I perceive in life and the collisions, departures and gaps among them. In order to visualise the process of the movement of objects and how they change the surrounding, I have used smoke to impact objects, to simulate the deformation of their movements to the surrounding air.

Visualise the colliding between air and object

L i g h t i n c e r a m i c

I also draw some sketch to help me think about how the link area between forms show the different pulling force and moving directions of them.

D i g i t a l s k e t c h

I have used digital sketch to help me with developing different situations of objects colliding .

Departure 2020 digital sketch

C l a y s k e t c h

While making 3d drawing on the computer, I have also build clay sketches by hand.

It helps me feel the scale of objects and the relationship among forms, material and light.

Clay sketches 2020 bone china, green ware

C l a y s k e t c h

W hen

i put the sketches into a real environment , light change the look of the work.

The bullet-liked form become the container.

Since the condition then that i can’t fire the clay, i replaced the translucent area with digging a tiny hole between forms so light can still travel through.

Clay sketches 2020 bone china, green ware

C l a y

I also put the under tress.

s k e t c h

object into real environment, a ground

The shadow of trees are uneven and moves because of that wind shake the leaves, which also influence the light inside of the structure.

Video screen shoot of clay sketch Changing lightness along time because of the movement of leaves strengthened by the internal shadow of forms.Â

Uneven lightness under the tree (2020) Photo of little figures in a park

D e p a r t u r e

Departure 2020 3D drawing

D e p a r t u r e

Departure 2020 3D drawing