胶囊｜陈飞：是时候说再见

陈飞：是时候说再见 Daniel Chen: Time to Say Goodbye???????

展期 Dates: 2025.04.26 - 06.28???????

开幕 Opening: 2025.04.26 15:00 - 18:00

地址 Address: 胶囊，上海徐汇区安福路275弄16号1层

Capsule, 1st Floor, Building 16, Anfu Lu 275 Nong, Xuhui District, Shanghai, China

胶囊将于4月26日至6月28日推出艺术家陈飞（Daniel Chen，1997年生于美国阿拉巴马州亨茨维尔）的第二次个人展览“是时候说再见”（Time to Say Goodbye)。本次展览集中呈现了艺术家于2023年至2025年间创作的绘画作品。在这些创作的过程中，艺术家经历了生命中一次深刻的变故——父亲的离世。绘画在他手中，成为记录、消化情感的方式，也成为献给父亲与观众的礼物。

物质性，是陈飞的作品中的一个重要特性。出生于90年代的美国，并在罗德岛艺术学院接受教育，他的探索受到1980年代美国纽约的抽象艺术家的实践影响，如乔纳森·拉斯克（Jonathan Lasker）、琼·斯奈德（Joan Snyder）、大卫·萨利（David Salle）、斯蒂芬·穆勒（Stephen Mueller）、比尔·詹森（Bill Jensen） 等。他们在那个时代想要挣脱极简主义和观念主义的形式规训，开始重新思考如何将更丰富的笔触引入空间，如何赋予创作过程以形体感与隐喻性。这些艺术家当中的许多人仍然活跃于美国艺术院校的教育体系中，由他们强调并发展出的一系列谈论绘画的语言传统对更年轻的一代艺术家产生了深远影响，如强调前景/背景（figure/ ground）关系，手势性笔触（gesture），或是在抽象的基础上引入具象元素和风景的线索等。

Daniel Chen 陈飞 | Thorns 荆棘 | 2025 | oil on canvas 布面油画 | 140 x 160 cm

陈飞的作品延续并拓展了这种思路，他经常使用刮刀，使相邻的笔触均不相同，独特的肌理构成的有机形态主导着画面，密集的色彩与手势性笔触构建出充满张力的视觉场域。与此同时，更具突破性的是他在材料的使用中引入时间的做法。《荆棘》（Thorns）始于2020年，在长达数年的反复打磨中，这张质地厚重的画，呈现出如土地表面般的粗粝质感。而这张画经历了四次“面目全非”的重大转变，如同剧烈的地壳运动一般。这个漫长的过程中，被刮除的颜料会被收集起来，在时间中凝结成块，再被收集并重新排列，变成画布上的星星、花瓣、毯子，或青苔。

在《婚礼派对》（Wedding Party）和《双子龙卷风》（Twin Tornados）中，来自过去的颜料就如宝石一般被排列展示。每一块的纹理都不同，每一笔的决定都被展示出来，丰盛到几乎令人难以消化。如果愿意，可以用更多的时间，去看每一颗颜料块的样子，用博物学的视角去考古它们的形态、生命，去看它们存在的环境。在这样的展示中，好像有种急切而慷慨的分享欲。艺术家把时间压缩、拍扁，再全部拿出来给你看。

这两件作品也采用了双联画（Diptych）的结构，仿佛在同一时间中展开两个平行的视角。这个曾在20世纪末经历了一次复兴的形式，被许多艺术家用来探索叙事的延伸、对照与矛盾。在《婚礼派对》（Wedding Party）中，网格式的构图从左边延续到右边，两边的画布被清晰地分割，又互为延续；而在《双子龙卷风》（Twin Tornados）中，一边是抽象的平铺和网格化的构图，一边是生活照片的波普化处理，两张画在一起因为冲突而产生跨越时空的交流，这样的构图分别让人联想到赛·托姆布雷（Cy Twombly）和大卫·萨利（David Salle）在90年代创作的双联画实验。陈飞曾写道“我还在试图弄明白自己为什么喜欢双联画。我想也许是因为两张画或想法在一起互相作用、甚至互相冲突，会产生一种特别的意义，让我能更真诚地与它们相连。”

Daniel Chen 陈飞 | Wedding Party 婚礼派对 | 2024 | oil on canvas 布面油画 | 180 x 236 cm

这种通过并置激发出的情感连结，也同样贯穿在他的单幅作品之中。例如展览中的肖像作品《陈志坚》(Chen Zhijian)，便以孤立的具象方式呈现了父亲的形象。尽管它与那些堆积着时间与碎片的抽象画在形式上不同，却像一个情感的锚点，为那些漫溢在画布上的色块和笔触注入了自传式的记忆。陈飞认为，这张画在某种意义上，是所有作品的起点。他说：“绿色的皮肤，既是他站在自然中，也是指向一种异乡人（alien）的，与土地格格不入的感觉。”这也意味着艺术家在这些作品中，更希望运用情感，而非形式语言，作为进入和串联的线索。

这种“异乡感”在整个展览中回荡着。展览标题“是时候说再见”［由安德烈·波切利（Andrea Bocelli）和莎拉·布莱曼（Sarah Brightman）演唱］，既是父亲生前最钟爱的旋律，也是此时此刻，面对父亲离世，艺术家的自我独白。作为美国出生的第二代移民，对陈飞来说，个人的情感体验与更广义的离散身份密切交织。他通过与父亲经历的共振，实践着对这种身份状态的感知与回应。

展览中，作品《美国公民及移民服务局》（U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services）延续了这种情感的折射。画面由染色的背景和粘黏的色块构成，陈飞的笔记中这样写道：“这是一面不想成为象征物，而是一面关于亲身经历的旗帜。我想到我爸爸移民到美国，努力融入，学习英语，成为移民，以及他必须亲身经历的这一切。画面上那些积累起来的颜料碎片反映了这一过程——它们被刮落、丢弃、重新利用，最终自己找到了属于它们的位置，排列成了这样的格子状构图。”

在这些不断积累、重组、寻找位置的碎片中，绘画本身似乎也在完成一次送别。美国学者刘易斯·海德（Lewis Hyde）在他1983年出版的《礼物：想象与财产的情感生活》（The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property）中提出：真正的艺术创作如同“礼物”一般运作，其价值体系有别于市场交换。艺术家将自己的故事、记忆和情感作为礼物，奉献给观者，在私人与公共领域之间架起桥梁。这种对艺术作为“礼物”的理解，恰好回应了陈飞的绘画态度。

在谈到作品《花火》（Fireworks of Flowers）时，陈飞认为，这是送给父亲的花，将回忆的感觉转化画面，以此去消化死亡。或许正是带着这样的心情，他在画面上做出了近乎过剩的选择——所有颜色自由绽放，每一笔都被保留下来，仿佛没有被轻易裁剪或舍弃。我们可以想象陈飞在工作室里，像甜点师或建筑工人一样劳作，而这样的劳作，像是生活的一种消化方式。记忆和故事被颜料吞下，然后吐出方格、花朵、肖像，和团块。颜色、形象与情感，被一把抓起，也被一起铺展开来。

最后，这一切，都如同一份无言的礼物，送给父亲，或留在那里，等待被看见。

撰文：汪晓芙

Capsule is pleased to present artist Daniel Chen’s (b. 1997, Huntsville, Alabama) second solo exhibition Time to Say Goodbye, on view from April 26 to June 28, 2025. The exhibition features paintings made between 2023 and 2025, during which the artist underwent a profound personal loss—the passing of his father. Painting became a way for him to record and process emotions, and a gift to his father and the audience.

Materiality is at the heart of Chen’s practice. Born in the 1990s in the U.S. and trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, Chen’s artistic exploration has been shaped by the practices of abstract artists active in New York in the 1980s—such as Jonathan Lasker, Joan Snyder, David Salle, Stephen Mueller, and Bill Jensen, who, in an attempt to break away from the austerity of minimalism and conceptualism, began rethinking how to introduce rich brushwork into space and imbue the process of painting with metaphors and physicality. Many of them remain relevant in the teaching of American art schools today, having developed a painterly vocabulary that continues to influence later generations of artists—one that highlights concepts such as figure/ground relationships, gesture, and the incorporation of figuration or landscape within abstraction.

Daniel Chen extends this lineage. He often uses a palette knife to ensure each stroke differs from the next. His canvas is dominated by organic forms and brims with a vibrant array of colors and gestures. Particularly noteworthy, however, is how he introduces the element of time into the use of materials. In Thorns, a painting that was started in 2020, the rugged texture evokes the weathered surface of the earth. The painting underwent four major transformations—each as radical as a tectonic shift. Throughout the process, paint that was scraped away was collected, left to harden over time, and then reused—arranged into stars, petals, blankets, or moss on the canvas.

Daniel Chen 陈飞 | Twin Tornados 双子龙卷风 | 2025 | oil on canvas 布面油画 | 170 x 260 cm (diptych 双联画)

In Wedding Party and Twin Tornados, accumulated fragments of paint are inlaid on the canvas like gemstones. Each one is unique, each a visible decision, almost overwhelming in their exuberance. One can spend time perusing debris of pigment, studying them like a naturalist might study fossils—uncovering their form, habitat and cycle of life. There seems to be a pressing yet generous desire to share in this approach. What unfolds in front of us here is time. Compressed. Flattened. 

Both works take the form of diptychs, suggesting two parallel perspectives within the same temporal frame. In the late 20th century, the diptych experienced a resurgence as a device to explore narrative development, contrast and contradiction. In Wedding Party, a grid-based composition flows from the left to the right panel, creating continuity while marking a clear division. In Twin Tornados, one panel is bestrewn with abstract clouds of paint, while the other is a Pop rendition of a vernacular photograph. The stark contrast between the two panels opens up a dialogue that transcends time and space. The composition evokes Cy Twombly’s and David Salle’s experiment with the diptych in the 1990s. Chen once wrote, “I’m still trying to figure out why I’m drawn to diptychs. Maybe it’s because two paintings or ideas placed side by side, interacting and even conflicting with one another, generate a special kind of meaning that allows me to connect with them more earnestly.”

Daniel Chen 陈飞 | Chen Zhijian 陈志坚 | 2024 | oil on canvas 布面油画 | 45 x 45 cm

This emotional resonance sparkled by juxtaposition extends to his single-panel works. Chen Zhijian, a portrait of the artist’s father, stands apart from the other works in the exhibition in its figurative representation. Though formally distinct from the abstract paintings layered with time and fragments, the portrait acts as an emotional anchor, contextualizing the colors and brushstrokes in autobiographical memory. Chen regards this portrait as, in a way, the origin of all the works. “The green skin,” he says, “implies him standing in nature, but also suggests a sense of alienation—of being estranged from the land.” In this sense, emotion—rather than form—becomes the thread tying the works together.

This feeling of estrangement reverberates throughout the exhibition. The title Time to Say Goodbye is the name of Chen’s father’s favorite song (performed by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman); it is also a message for the artist himself in the wake of his father’s passing. As a second-generation immigrant born in the United States, Chen’s personal emotional experiences are deeply intertwined with a broader diasporic identity. Through the resonance with his father’s life experience, he seeks to understand and respond to the identity.

The work U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, composed of a dyed background and clotted pigment, continues this emotional echo. In his notes, Chen writes: “This is a flag that does not wish to symbolize, but instead commemorates lived experience. I thought of my dad moving to the States, trying to fit in, learning English, becoming a citizen—and all he had to go through to get there. The accumulated paint fragments on the canvas reflect that journey. They were scraped off, discarded, and repurposed. Yet in the end they found their place, forming this gridded composition.”

Amid the constant accumulating, recompositing, and repositioning of the fragments, painting itself seems to have performed a ritual of farewell. American scholar Lewis Hyde, in his 1983 publication The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property, argued that genuine art functions as a gift, passed along in a system different from the market economy. It is through the gesture of gifting—of artists offering memories, stories, and feelings to the viewers—that the personal and the public realms are bridged. This vision of art as gift resonates with Chen’s approach to painting.

Daniel Chen 陈飞 | Fireworks of Flowers 花火 | 2024 | oil on canvas 布面油画 | 145 x 140 cm

Fireworks of Flowers is the artist’s bouquet to his father. Here, memory and sentiment are translated into visual form as a way to reconcile with death. Perhaps that’s why the painting overflows with exuberance—all colors in full bloom, every mark preserved. Seemingly nothing has been held back or left out. One can imagine Chen working in the studio like a patissier or construction worker. Physical labor becomes a way to digest life. His paint absorbs memories and stories, and spits them out as grids, flowers, portraits, and clusters. Colors, figures, and feelings are mixed together and splashed out.

In the end, this is a silent gift—for dad, or one that stays here, waiting to be seen.

Text by Xiaofu Wang

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