Chen Aikang 2009-10-31
Brooklyn,
New York
“Huang Yongping. Of course, those who could pass the entrance exam already had a very strong foundation in art. He passed the exam without a problem, but he never wholeheartedly practised life-drawing skills like the other students. While at school, he was already thinking about leaving it. For his graduation piece—I didn’t actually teach this aspect of his studies but I went to see his work anyway—he went to a factory, quite a large one, and used a spray gun instead of a brush. It was a relatively abstract work with a unique colour composition. My most concrete impression of his graduation piece was that he used a spray gun to make the painting.”
Biography:
Chen Aikang (b. 1945, Yan’an) is an artist and art teacher, based in Vancouver.
From 1959 to 1964, Chen studied in the Central Academy's High School in Beijing. From 1965 to 1970, she enrolled as an undergraduate in the Oil Painting Department at the Academy’s Hangzhou campus. When university education resumed in China following a break during the Cultural Revolution, Chen returned to her alma mater to teach in the Oil Painting Department. Among her students were many artists now well known, including Huang Yongping, Wang Guangyi and Zhang Peili, to name a few.
Since 1990, Chen has lived and worked in Vancouver where she also teaches art.
