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In Wu Chen’s paintings, balancing the relationship between forces is a key theme. After 2020, he often places lines in prominent places in a painting. The lines in his paintings are flexible, not only expanding and contracting in the horizontal or vertical directions of the picture, but also seeming to move ‘toward or away from the virtual space of the viewer’; these lines are three-dimensional and free. In Artist, Model and Angel (2021), the lines that outline the form of the artist with his feet on the earth are directly squeezed and applied golden acrylic paint. The intention of the lines jumping out of the picture like sculptural relief is heightened, and the figure has no ground to rest upon— he is ‘stuck’ within the frame of the arched door, which prevents him from floating away. The nature of lines are suitable for portraying images floating in the air. Some works depict flying angels (Angels 2021; Angel 2022; Artist and Angel, 2021), and some figures are even outlined by the traces of insects flying nearby (Lover, Thinker, Breeder, 2021).

Between lines, shifting colours become fillers. In Stop Sketching Autumn When Summer Comes (2020), [a painting that is] both generous and obscene, a rabbit has its belly ripped open, revealing accumulated paint inside. The paint hardly participates in the shaping of the figure, relying on its own hue and saturation to complete the abstract movement. In what seems like an endless extension, lines neatly cut through chaotic masses of colour, almost dividing it into irreconcilable forms. In Wu Chen’s works from recent years, he has assigned a clear division of labour between lines and colours: lines structure and shapes the imagery, while colours extend this structure and shape. Colours also ‘illuminate’ lines, while showing tendencies of flatness and mystery. Wu Chen claims ‘[in terms of] colours I add to paintings, one type is to enhance or eliminate lines, the other is to imagine “light”. “Light” here is not stage-like, but embodied in a colour block or form, thrown violently into the painting.’ In Fried Egg, Egg, Chicken (2021), this division of labour is temporarily absent. The yolk in the centre of the painting is transparent and full, and the colour is responsible for creating volume. But this has been a rare case in the past three years.

In short, Wu’s paintings from 2020 to 2022 are light and elevated. To achieve this, the artist selected relevant topics and means. When the ends and means match, a complete system is established. Wu Chen commented that he doesn’t like to keep using a fixed method. Once a question has been solved momentarily in his career, he wants to challenge himself. Every stage of his career is established by him. Each new stage is based upon its predecessor; it destroys and corrects it to gain a new life. How did his paintings change after 2022?

It may be more convenient to analyse it from the perspective of ‘balanced force’ mentioned at the beginning of the article. Here the ‘force’ mainly refers to the psychological impression the painting makes on the viewer, rather than the mere physical gravity. Regarding a rising and light state, the painting expresses two kinds of ‘forces’: one is the driving force of upward movement of the buoyant force leaving the ground, and the other is similar to the force exerted inwards and pressed on the painting. Large-scale paintings such as Therefore, the Lonely God Can Only be the Orphan of God (2020), part of the work is done on the ground. The paint accumulates and solidifies; the formed layers unevenly pressure the back of the canvas. In a system that tries to achieve the state of ‘lightness’, the former helps with the goal but the latter can occasionally seem awkward. Wu Chen did not actively promote the emergence of this force in his creation, but the materiality of paint cannot be eliminated in painting. If he wishes to jump out of the picture, he must bear the weight of the relief itself (Artist, Model and Angel). The moment the picture frame is hung, part of the inward force is converted into a downward force, and the upward force is weakened.

Wu Chen used the downward force that could not be entirely eliminated. In A Spell, Dream Hair Salon (2023), a lying rabbit presses a watermelon out of shape, and its buttocks gently lifts three pieces. The top watermelon says ‘dream barber shop’ in Uighur. The flowing fonts casually pass over the top of the painting, seeming to mock the tension between the objects in the painting below. In Three Conflicting Emotions (2023), the metal block engraved with a fly is cracked and squeezed tightly within the boundaries of the picture, and the gaps are filled with coloured stones. In Dangerous Liaison (2023), the load-bearing structure of the picture is further exposed. The black square in the lower left corner extends all the way to the blue sphere in the upper right corner, diagonally across the white area filled with cracked texture. In these paintings, Wu Chen’s psychological provocation of the audience has reached its limit: the thrill and exhilaration of imaginary objects collapsing extend the sense of time of the viewing experience. Wu Chen said: ‘I materialized the spatial relationships in the painting into colour blocks and imagined them as toy building blocks. The purpose of stacking the blocks is not to create a stable structure similar to a monument. The most fascinating part to me is the moment before the blocks collapse— a moment of tension pulled between stability and instability, doubting stability itself in its own way.’

Following the concept of force, the internal logic of these paintings is both inherited and subverted from previous stages. The ‘light and elevated’ pursuit was not abandoned. The picture still shows an upward trend. This time, the trend isn’t the result of weak buoyancy. The unstable ‘building blocks’ lay the foundation from the bottom of the picture and bear the weight of the top. The psychological hints of the objects below (such as the tortured expression of the watermelon at the bottom of A Spell, Dream Hair Salon) add to the weight of the picture. It comes from the function of contrast: the heavier the lower part, the harder it is to carry it; the higher it is, the lighter it is.

The heaviness of the accumulated materiality on the surface of the painting itself also adds weight to the foundation beneath the painting. In 2023, Wu Chen used acrylic cracking agent and acrylic rods for the first time (Sunrise or Sunset) and the thickness, texture and layers of the painting surface have undergone rich changes. When viewers see the painting hanging on the wall, they are slightly tempted to imagine how it would appear when laid flat on the ground. They can even imagine themselves shrinking to the size of their fingertips, wandering on the uneven surface of the painting, and using their toes to carefully experience the granular difference between gold and red and white in A Spell, Dream Hair Salon. When they come back to their senses, return to their original shape, and look at the hanging picture, they will find that the material paint is dragging it toward the ground. This subtle sense of criticality is consistent with the force exerted by Jenga on the verge of collapse on a table.

In the 2023 painting, Wu Chen accomplished his task brilliantly: while arousing and depicting the power of the spirit, he also endowed it with a broken order, rendering the picture logically solid and credible. As mentioned above, he tried his best to limit the process of creative transformation within the framework of self-growth, summoning his current self to start a battle with his past self. He slyly avoids the homogeneous issue that paintings on canvas in today’s China address: how to deal with the grafting of various cultural heritage contexts. Occasionally, he would take one or two threads from these connections, tell a story, and vigilantly maintain his independence and initiative. For example, he can choose the image of the Virgin into the painting (Portrait of Y and XX, 2014), or depict the angel on the mosaic window (Angels, 2021), but he has to treat the form as childish and simple, even if he is ridiculed for it. He is unwilling to move towards the pursuit of perfection of his predecessors— not only that, he needs a reason that meets his inner needs and standards before he commits himself to the seemingly easy borrowing.

Wu Chen has a Self Portrait (Clubs 3) (2023), which depicts a painter in the pattern of a club card. He stands between Malevich’s black square and Andy Warhol’s colourful dots, his expression determined. Under the rules of Texas Hold’em, the 3 of Clubs is a small card, but it does not necessarily mean it will lose to the Ace of Spades— he once painted a picture called A Gambler’s Anxiety When Faced with Spade A. The choice of clumsy and naive techniques reveals the [feeling of] insignificance and humbleness that is almost impossible to adjust in the crowded painting circuit at the moment, and is even mixed with a cynicism and frivolity; at the same time, the artist is still an artist, conceited, arrogant, and full of fighting spirit. Even if he has a bad hand of cards, he will not loosen his alertness at all. He will wait for every opportunity to win by surprise. As the title of his early work Portrait of Wu and Chen foreshadows, Wu Chen is divided and lonely, sometimes lively, sometimes serious, with connections and references, but without connections to rely on.