Featured Artist: GIGI CHEN

Gigi Chen is a visual artist with a playful mind that radiates into her Art.
She was born in Guang Dong, China and raised in Woodhaven Queens and NYC where she now resides and works.
The inspiration for her work comes from all of her surroundings.

She finds her mind to be a bank of accumulated bits and pieces of thoughts and visuals.
She often finds creativity in the oddest places for example,
a person can say a word and she will hang unto that idea for a few months
and then she will create it into an art piece.

Gigi Chen was born with the creative muse within her.
At the tender age of 11 she recalls copying an image of Ariel from “The Little Mermaid.”
The drawing was what her little kid brain felt was pure perfection.
That was the actual moment she decided that art was going to be the career she wanted to do for the rest of her life.
Forever. No kidding!!

Gigi Chen's biggest influence have been the wonderful world of child play, the Saturday morning cartoons!.
Watching cartoons triggered her imagination and allowed her to reach into the grand desire to become an animator.
She went on and got her BFA in traditional animation.

Gigi also craved the desire of learning the masters. Her favorite was Leonardo Da Vinci.
The old Masters have an inexplicable and fantastic hold on her.
Once she knew what she wanted in life, she began to spend hours at the library doing research on the matter.
She would check out books on art and drawing. She was hooked on Da Vinci master pieces.
The drawings and the sculptures of Michelangelo set off a complete need and that was " IT!" she was hooked!

Gigi Chen was not sure about the style or label her art would be considered,
since she started showing in galleries she has been told that her work falls into the category of “Pop-Surrealism.”
Her work comes from so many different places: animation, traditional painting, films…
Because her work doesn't come from a strictly illustrative base,it has made it difficult at times to know
how the work should be labeled. Maybe that confusion makes her work so unique and special with it's own identity.

Gigi Chen creates an aesthetic that combines her training as a traditional animator and her love of the "Old Master" techniques.
She has displayed her works at the "Queens Museum of Art", "the Index Art Center" and at "Mighty Tanaka Gallery" in New York.

Gigi Chen
-"My paintings are unconventional self-portraits that explore my ambivalent feelings towards being an artist
and how it affects my views of the world. The Toy-like characters personify my neuroses and hearken back to my childhood fondness for soft play things.

The dynamic between the human figures and the characters is a constant push and pull.
They are interchangeably protagonists and victims, winning as well as losing.
Collectively, the scenes illustrate the struggles and rewards of being an artist."
In one sentence she describes herself and her work with her favorite Motto:"LOVE + FUN= ART"
If you wish to learn more on this artist please visit her site: