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Chen Zhe approaches artistic practice as a search for integration amid separation. By pressing against thresholds where body and consciousness struggle to reconcile, and where language and experience fail to coincide, she seeks to understand how one might inhabit finitude as it is lived.

In Chen’s work, the body serves not only as a vessel of perception, but as the site of transformation. She explores how time, trauma, desire, and belief inscribe themselves upon the body, and how these invisible forces acquire form through it. This perspective is deeply informed by literature, anatomy, and Jungian psychology, drawing upon the symbolic systems of astronomy, divination, alchemy, and ritual practice.

Often unfolding as long-term projects, Chen’s practice spans photography, sculpture, installation, and publication, collectively forming an ongoing journey of discovery and return.

Chen Zhe (b.1989, Beijing) received her BFA in Photography and Imaging from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Her works has been exhibited at Lillehammer Art Museum, Norway (2022); UCCA Dune, Qinhuangdao (2021); Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2020); Plug In ICA, Canada (2020); Ming Contemporary Art Museum, Shanghai (2020); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany (2019); White Rabbit Gallery, Australia (2019); the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Australia (2018); Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Japan (2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2018); OCAT Shenzhen, Shenzhen (2018); Guangzhou Photo Triennial, Guangzhou (2017); Anren Biennale, Chengdu (2017); CAFA Art Museum, Beijing (2017); the 11th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai (2016); Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai (2016); University of Toronto Art Centre, Canada (2014); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2013); Fotohof, Austria (2012); Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (2011) and more.

Chen Zhe is the recipient of the Inge Morath Award from the Magnum Foundation (2011), Three Shadows Award (2011), Lianzhou Festival Photographer of the Year Award (2012), Xitek New Talent Award (2015) and the Foam Talent (2018). She is also subject of TV documentary films Chinese Viewfinder (ARTE, France, 2013) and China Through the Lens of Youth (NHK, Japan, 2014). Her publication Bees & The Bearable was awarded the Best Photobook of the Year by Kassel Fotobookfestival in 2016.

CHEN Zhe

SELECTED WORKS

EXHIBITIONS

As Precise As Fever

Persona and Parasite

NEWS

Before Myth Becomes Rhetoric

The Hooligans

2025 Jinchen’s Contemporary Visions of Historic Architecture — Cosmic Alignment

Stay Connected: Art and China Since 2008

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Lingua Franca: TOKAS Creator-in-Residence 2025 Exhibition

At the end of my suffering, there was a window

Love Unknown

Three-Body Art Project·Prologue: First Contact

The 8th Edition of Gallery Weekend Beijing Up&Coming Sector: The Inner Side of the Wind

Looking At The Stars

新书《生时饮罢》发布&《蜜蜂&可承受的》第三回再版

Towards Evenings: My Heart

Being Theoria: 4th Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art

Stepping Out! Female Identities in Chinese Contemporary Art

ON | OFF 2021: Carousel of Progress