About
ELVIS CHEN / DRAWING & SOCIAL PRACTICE
Biography
Elvis Chen is a visual artist working primarily with charcoal and ink. His autobiographical practice explores identity, everyday encounters and the distance between outward appearances and inner experience. Humour and self-reflection run through his drawings, alongside a critical attention to his surroundings.
He trained at Instituto Buena Bista in Curaçao and graduated in Fine Arts / Painting from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 2016. Alongside drawing, his practice extends into participatory projects, performance and moving image. Projects such as Bittersweet and Waar we zweven create space for personal stories to become shared experiences.
Artist statement
My work begins with personal experience: the encounters, contradictions and questions that shape a life. Drawing gives me a way to look closely at these experiences and at the assumptions I make about myself and others.
Charcoal and ink are my main materials. Through figures, gestures and expressive marks, I explore how identity shifts through lived experience. Humour sits alongside vulnerability and a critical look at the everyday. I am interested in the gap between what we show and what we carry within us.
This attention to personal stories also extends beyond the studio. In my social practice, drawing becomes a starting point for conversation and participation. Working with others allows individual experiences to take new forms through images, objects, performance and film. The personal becomes a drawing; the drawing opens a conversation.
Curriculum vitae
