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Art Hub Magazine is an endent journal that features ticism, reviews, and news of ational contemporary art in apes and forms, produced in ation with the Art Hub y in Auckland.

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ublication is quarterly

EXHIBITION REVIEW - JIACHEN ZENG “MERMER” SERIES IN EXHIBITION “BODILY”

Dr. Caroline Perret - Independent Scholar

Curious and explorative, the “Mermer” series delves into the everyday and mundane feeling so commonly experienced in our technological world, but enhanced by the pandemic: our direct facing and relationship with screens While the total lack of colour and the black and white nature of the paintings emphasise the contrast between the projected light on our face and the imagined cut-out shadow left on our back, their two-dimensional representations echo the flatness of the screen itself But more importantly, the paintings ask questions about the process of seeing and being seen, of what can be

perceived or not, of who is watching While initially based on the subtle and intuitive exploration of the artist’s emotions and perceptions when confronted with a screen, be it the one of a laptop, a computerised watch or a VR-set, the series slowly acquired its own narrative Stemming from the artist’s focus on the idea that “communication between people depends on the understanding, story and background of each interlocutor”, the paintings question the difference between information and opinion, as well as the part that is played by our imagination in apprehending the world

STAGE, 2024, OIL ON CANVAS, 91.5 X 121.5 CM

ATTENTION, 2023, OIL ON CANVAS, 91.5 X 121.5 CM

With the oil painting “Stage”, Jiachen Zeng highlights the distinction between what we decide to present to the world through our screens, the image/s of ourselves that we construct, intentionally or not, and the part of ourselves we choose to keep literally “in the shadow” We are “ on stage” and the roles that we play are multi-faceted, as we are together the actors and directors of our lives; the question is whether we are in control of those images, as social networks dictate the presentation of pure happiness and idealised relationships unstained by the more difficult and darker, yet normal aspects of individual and social life

This question is further explored in the oil painting “Attention” that seems to form the perfect companion to “Stage”, as the viewers are now invited to look at an audience watching a film or a theatre play, and thus wonder what the subject of their attention is. Like in “Together”, there is that possibility of human engagement, but do the characters in the painting, do we, when we are in a public space, succeed in establishing that contact?

In the mixed-media ceramic “Pilgrimage”, Jiachen Zeng refers to another form of control, the one of educational practices as articulated by Michel Foucault in his seminal book of 1990, “Disciplines and Knowledge” Like prisons and psychiatric asylums,

The mixed-media ceramic “Together” questions this meant togetherness that is supposed to be created by social networks and invites the viewer to take part in this decision, as the two figures can be separated and re-arranged freely Therefore, the two characters might or might not face one another. They might be looking at an imaginary screen, being more interested in that technological interaction and the image that they project than in the possible, or engage in a more human exchange and communication that is within reach and touch

he argues that educational institutions are complex technologies of disciplinary control where power and knowledge are closely interconnected; schools also are institutions of moral and social regulation that play a crucial role in the construction of social norms and the formatting of individuals To take this philosophy further, one could state that specific models of individuals are reproduced like “ memes ” and spread across society, a notion that seems at the conceptual and etymological centre of the series “Mermer” Moreover, in the mixed-media ceramic “Support”, Jiachen Zeng draws a thought-provoking parallel between the physical light of a screen and religious devotion or at least

PILGRIMAGE, 2022, MIXED MEDIA

TOGETHER, 2022, MIXED MEDIA

ideas of belief and faith, in addition to referencing Renaissance painting with her use of chiaroscuro and the portrayal of saints under the projection of divine lighting The mixed-media ceramic “Strange One” is a case in point, as its viewers facing a cinema screen resemble a congregation assembled at an altar listening to a priest’s sermon In this perspective, it could be argued that technological devices represent a new religion in which we place an innocent trust that fails to notice the wider economic agendas and stakes of gargantuesque multinational corporations

Jiachen Zeng’s works remind me of Deleuze and Guattari’s collaborative writing in which they argue that there is no distinction between the individual and the collectivity, just social desire, which is always in movement, in the process of formation and deformation, as it is dependent upon the variety of situations in which individuals evolve; hence the expression “body without organs ” and “desiring machines”.I would say that this aspiration to be recognised socially is ironically exploited by the engineers who design the applications in the machines, such as motor engines and social networks,

EXHIBITION VIEW BASEMENT FLOOR, OIL PAINTING “ATTENTION”, “FLOATING” SERIES, SCULPTURE “SUPPORT” AND “TOGETHERNESS”

‘THE

PAINTINGS ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROCESS OF SEEING AND BEING SEEN’

and maybe eventually in the future, by the machines themselves. While Deleuze and Guattari asserted that the body without organs is produced in a connective synthesis, and is neither an image of the body, nor a projection, this assertion was made at the end of the 1970s - early 1980s, a time that didn’t even know computers I believe it now is, and it is precisely what is at stake in Jiachen Zeng’s “Floating” series of oil paintings that describes this very image of a body, its projection,

and the resulting process of dissociation In fact, the series depicts this process in a progressive and meticulous manner, from “Floating Defining” in which a body is precisely divided into two halves [its identity and its image]; “Floating Rupture” which sees the division of these two halves; “Floating Together” in which identity and projected image can co-habite; to finally “Floating Alone” with only the projected image left

While the lack of features in the faceless “Mermers” could acknowledge the fact that gender, sexuality, class or age does not matter in a society that aspires to be equal for all, their ghostly presence could tell another story of anonymity and loss of identity

It is the richness of Jiachen Zeng’s work that allows us to ponder and it is her generous open-mind that leaves us with a range of possibilities, neither black, nor white

‘THE FACELESS “MERMERS” COULD ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACT THAT GENDER, SEXUALITY, CLASS OR AGE DOES NOT MATTER’

About the author

Dr Caroline Perret is an Independent Scholar, following conversations with the artist. After finishing her PhD in Social Art History on 'Dubuffet, Fautrier and Paris under the Occupation and in its Aftermath: A Study in the Visual and Textual Ideology of Matter' at the University of Leeds in 2008, Dr Caroline Perret worked as a Research Associate for the Group for War and Culture Studies at the University of Westminster, where she researched the impact of war on cultural production in the historical, political, social and cultural context of WWI and WWII in Britain, France, and beyond She is now an independent scholar and art critic, particularly interested in modern and contemporary art, illustrated books, films, literature, and poetry

About the artist

Born in 1997 in Shenzhen - China and based in London, Jiachen Zeng is a mixedmedia artist. She obtained her Master of Art degree from the sculpture department at the Royal College of Art - London in 2022 after completing her Bachelor of Fine Art degree in Painting and Drawing at the School of Art Institute of Chicago in 2019 She is particularly interested in “spiritual and physical boundaries”, as well as “the existing balanced ecologies of daily occurrences, including relationships, unforgettable memories and fetishes about specific objects”

STRANGE ONE，2022， MIXED MEDIA