There is Life in All Things

by Kelsey Chen

“There is Life in All Things” is part of a series of oil paintings whose surfaces have collected the traces of calligraphic hauntings. Continentally dislocated and the bearer of genealogical traumas, each diasporic body is haunted by transcontinental spectres; the spectral Chinese characters and ghostly calligraphic moves hidden within the motion of paint on canvas mirror the profound anxiety of my own tectonically fractured bloodline. These ghosts leave their residue across my canvasses—partly confessional, my paintings are a collection of the fragmented memories and emotions that have come to figure my existence.