| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Chen’s work has always been steeped in his rich Chinese heritage. His grandfather owned a large art collection, and Chen studied calligraphy with him as a small boy. He also learned traditional Chinese watercolour and oil painting from master teachers, and won awards for his carving of signature seals. After graduation from the Shanghai College of Textile Art in 1967, he taught painting, calligraphy and art history. His own work was influenced by the 19th-c Shanghai School tradition of painting flowers and plants with great delicacy and understatement, for which he was much admired. In 1980, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Zhejiang National Art Academy, studying the fusion of traditional Chinese art practices and philosophies with Western art.
After teaching for six years at East China Normal University, he was invited to be a visiting instructor in Chinese Art and Art History at the Universities of Victoria, BC (1986), and Connecticut, USA (1987). These travels provided the chance for Chen to experiment with Western aesthetics, images and materials – combining acrylic paint with rice paper, for example, or using collage. He began to produce abstract images in brilliant, even neon, colours. In works such as “Lady Bathing in Moonlight” (1991), these exuberant colours are overlaid with what seem like ancient pictographic lines.
Chen moved to Canada in 1987, residing for a time in Edmonton. In 1988 he established Visions Gallery, and in 1991, the Mozhi Chen Institute of Fine Art. He held shows at the Vik Gallery and the West End Gallery in the 1990s.
Chen has exhibited in most major cities in China, Europe and North America, including in Boston, New York and Vancouver. His work can be found in permanent collections at the East China Normal University, the Universities of Connecticut and Victoria, the Shanghai Art Gallery, and the Zhejiang National Fine Art Academy.
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