Ray Chen Sculptor
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Mother and Child

10/14/2020

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​A maternal bond is a complex tie between mother and child.  The bond is one of the strongest life connections in nature. My mother, Cheng Wah Kuo, shaped my artistic life through Western music training and Japanese flower arrangement-Ikebana. When she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and later departed this world in 2003, she had groomed her only son to become an artist. “Mother and Child” series, express the timelessness of maternal love and reveal the universal connection, dialogue and vision of my own relationship with my mother. It is an inspirational, explorative and intellectual effort to portrait in a new modern representation.
 
I have been engaging in a new dialogue and artistic growth of the “Mother and Child” series that reflect my motivation, vision and aspiration.  “Mother and Child” is to re-exam and explore abstract forms that challenge new contexts and concepts in a contemporary language. As I review my accumulated experiences of having Eastern heritage, while continuing learning and growing as a practicing artist in the United States, I realized that no conventional technique or use of material could visually express my relationship with my mother. Techniques come with limitations, such is the nature of our concrete world; consequently, I have learned to grow beyond such limitations and discover materials for my artistic expression that elevate my respect and deeper love for my mother.
 
Every material has adaptability, function, and untapped potential. Leaning on one’s life experience, full of challenges, an artist must remain true to oneself and explore its potential and honesty. In contemporary art, material is the concept, and the maternal love is the expression.  “Mother and Child” is a tangible representation of maternal love as a life’s experience that unifies purpose and adaptability.
 
“Mother and Child” recognizes natural elements in composition and emotion in maternal love. It overturns, modifies and questions our way of seeing and comprehending the visible and invisible connections that symbolizes contemporary and post-modern visual languages. It also exposes the symbolic, philosophical and aesthetic force that extends and reaches beyond the boundaries of artistic expression.
 
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Mother and Child Series

6/20/2015

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Every great work of art conveys a story, but to make the artwork stand above the rest the story must be significant. Chen’s Mother and Child series tells a personal story of pain, family, and – more importantly – love. This particular piece beautifully narrates the story of love surfacing from much anguish.

Although the Mother and Child series had beginnings from Chen’s mother being diagnosed with Parkinson’s, the disease was not the inspiration for the this particular piece of art within the series. This artwork was inspired from the respect, honor, and love he had for his mother – not from selfish ambition.  

This artwork shows the movement of influence one piece has on the other. The impactful message is best conveyed by the size of the darker piece. Chen wants to communicate that his mother was his source of inspiration with this particular artwork. Notice how overwhelming the darker piece is compared to the white piece. The color and rough texture indicate the nature of the disease and the struggles and pain that was shared, but it is the size of the darker piece that communicates the influence – or inspiration – it has on the lighter piece.

Chen believes if he loses sight of his mother being his inspiration, then he will lose the focus of his pure mission in his art endeavors, which would then result in a loss of his identity. So, he meticulously formed this piece of the Mother and Child series to honor his mother for developing him from a child to a man through her knowledge, wisdom, and support by pushing him to audaciously fulfill his potential as a man and an artist.

The most interesting aspect is the unglazed portion of the white piece. Chen left a portion of the clay unglazed to leave it in its rawest form – intentionally. Why? It portrays the purest form of love revealed from pain, but born from the borderless connection shared between the mother and child. So, this artwork shows the influential aspect of the love and how it impacts the receiver, which is the child in this case. Chen conveys how the intangible influence of love can create an everlasting impression by letting his hands do his heart's work with clay.


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Mother and Child

2/5/2015

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A mother’s relationship with her child is a phenomenon we are all familiar with, but how does one convey such a personal bond universally? How does one truly depict a bond that is strengthened by disagreements, joys, failures, and wise counseling? Ray Chen has answered such questions about this conventional understanding by beautiful, unconventional means with this piece from his Mother Series.

When Chen’s mother became diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease he began to reevaluate what he was doing with his art and began observing his relationship with his mother. This active observation influenced unique works of art such as this one. As he began to revisit his past, he was able to accumulate his experiences of having an Eastern heritage while learning and practicing art in the United States. Chen believes that those experiences have helped him become the artist he is today, but realized that no conventional technique or use of material could help express his relationship with his mother.

Many techniques have been taught to artist students with various materials presented by an instructor, but those come with limitations, as is the nature of many regulated things in life. So, Chen yearned to grow beyond such limitations in respect of his mother and began experimenting with porcelain. Expressing such a unique relationship between a mother and her child required Chen to dig deep and discover how to use and shape a material for this expression. 

“Every material has a limitation, but every material has an untapped potential,” states Chen. In contemporary art the material is the concept, and Chen has broke through the material’s limitations by finding it’s potential to accurately represent the maternal relationship between a mother and her child. Since the material is the concept and the concept is maternal love one could make the argument that this literally is maternal love and not just a mere representation of it.

Just as maternal love is, Mother and Child goes beyond the platonic understanding of this relationship through the various, physical aspects of the artwork. It isn’t a portrait conveying an instance of maternal love, nor is it a sculpted statue of his mother as a memorial. Mother and Child is the tangible representation of maternal love through its twists and turns, rough patches, size, and unity of message and pieces. 


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