Artist Statement | Chen Shuxia

My interest in photography arose during my studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. I graduated in 1987, but my photography began in 1984 and 1985. I had a good relationship with my classmates and joined the school's photography club, which consisted of about seven or eight people, including Hong Hao. The number of students at the Central Academy of Fine Arts was small, and the club members were students of all majors. We often met to discuss photography and organize exhibitions that were held in the school.

My major was fine arts, so I could work with all materials. There were no digital cameras at that time, so I had to buy all the film myself, using domestic film at first and then imported film. I developed it myself. Because I like the surrealist style, I prefer to work in the darkroom. The negatives you develop can be treated in different ways. I enjoyed the process. But in the early 1990s, computers became available, and you could easily do all that in Photoshop. So for a long time, I didn't want to make photographs. In my heart, images of the outside world were transformed into my own mental images, but the role the camera could play was obscured by the creative thinking and specific processes used today. The weakening of image processing has also weakened the meaning of the photograph itself.

When I was at university, almost all the photographers in China were journalists from official newspapers or magazines. They had good cameras and took very formal pictures and did documentary photography, but I was more interested in photography from a visual and artistic point of view. The students at the Academy of Fine Arts treated photographs as works of art. Photography itself is art, and good photography is unforgettable. This is because what moves you is not just a reproduction of reality, but also a record of moments in your experience. Good photography, even documentary photography, transcends time. In my photographs, I try to find the moments that are overlooked in everyday life, or even beyond reality, that can give people moments of reflection.

For me, photography is a kind of process of finding oneself. “Seeking for the Self” was created during my graduation from university, and it was also shown at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in 1988. The first image is my real self, and the others are distorted versions of myself taken in a fun-house mirror. I've been searching for myself and what kind of work suits me.

I was influenced by Europe and the USA by reading catalogues, but I couldn't find enough books or catalogues to read.  I had friends or teachers who brought them from abroad. There were more foreign films that I saw during the film week at my university. In the mid to late ‘90s, it became easier to go abroad. During our student days, communication, whether national or international, was a precious experience and a real pleasure.