Catherine Ko Chen’s work centers around emotion and memory, and how both change shape over time. Through layering and repetition, her paintings explore what is remembered, what those memories become, and how these are represented after some time and distance. Her tine-intensive process is a route to explore how elements of her media and her own memory shift. Her resulting abstract paintings are artifacts which carry experience.
Shifts in the seasons and quality of light play a central role in the visual language of Chen’s paintings, which also draw from musical, literary and personal references. Quietly pulsating colors and sweeping marks create luminous, gustural forms.
Catherine Ko Chen is an artist from San Francisco, currently based in London. Recent exhibitions include solo shows at Etesian Gallery (Menorca, ES) and Problem Library (San Francisco), as well as group shows with Warbling Collective (London, UK) and North Coast Asylum (Cornwall, UK).